Delhi Budget 2025: Subsidies for solar panels; cables to go underground

Delhi CM Rekha Gupta announced the PM Surya Ghar scheme for solar subsidies, a ₹100 crore project for underground cables, and a power budget of ₹3,843 crore.

Published on: Mar 26, 2025, 05:44:14 IST

By Jasjeev Gandhiok

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Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta, while presenting the Delhi budget on Tuesday, announced a state-level extension of the PM Surya Ghar: Free Electricity Scheme, aimed at promoting domestic solar panel installations through subsidies. The initiative aligns with the government’s push for 24x7 power supply, particularly from renewable sources.

Overhead power cables in a shopping district. (Getty Images)

Gupta also unveiled a ₹100-crore pilot project to shift overhead power cables underground.

The budget allocated ₹3,843 crore for the power sector in 2025-26, an increase from ₹3,353 crore in 2024-25 revised estimates. An outlay of ₹3,183 crore was made for the sector in 2024-25 budget.

The CM said her government is in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Union government for the implementation of the PM Surya Ghar: Free Electricity Scheme.

A state-level extension of the same scheme aims to cover 230,000 rooftops with solar panels in Delhi over the next three years. “A subsidy of up to ₹78,000 will be provided to residential consumers,” Gupta said.

Further, the Delhi government plans to shift all overhead cables underground. “Overhead electricity wires not only deface the beauty of the city but are also risky from a security point of view. Therefore, my government has proposed shifting of high-tension and low-tension power lines, for which ₹100 crore has been allocated,” she said.

Binit Das, programme manager for renewable energy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), hailed Delhi’s solar initiatives. “Allocating ₹50 crore under the new PM Surya Ghar scheme is a positive step toward equipping 230,000 rooftops with solar energy and advancing clean energy adoption,” he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jasjeev Gandhiok
Jasjeev Gandhiok is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times, where he covers environment, climate change, the clean energy transition and wildlife at the National Bureau. Gandhiok has over a decade of experience in journalism and is based in Delhi. He has reported extensively on Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). This includes the region's air pollution woes, a polluted Yamuna and on urban wildlife still thriving in the region. He joined HT in October 2021. Prior to that, he had five-year stint at The Times of India in Delhi, where he also covered Delhi, with a focus on environment and wildlife. Gandhiok has covered some recent events around the Capital too, ranging from the farmers' protests, the northeast Delhi riots and the CAA-NRC protests, reporting from the ground on all of these. He also travels across the country to report on how environment and climate change impact everyday life, while also writing on endangered species. His reports in 2019 on toxic leachate from Delhi's landfills led to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) taking suo motu cognisance and ultimately asking the state government to start bio-mining to flatten and remove all three landfills in the capital. He also closely tracks the implementation of government policies on climate, renewable energy and environmental protection. His focus remains on impactful, public-interest journalism which explains how environmental decisions affect people's everyday lives.Read More

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