Climate Change
Solar Fields: PM-KUSUM's Green Revolution for India's Farmers
From energy burden to economic boon: Solar power schemes like PM-KUSUM are empowering millions of Indian farmers.
In villages across Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Haryana, a quiet shift is underway. The familiar diesel-engine thrum that once powered irrigation pumps through the night is being replaced by something silent: rows of solar panels feeding water pumps straight off sunlight. The scheme behind this shift — Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan, or PM-KUSUM — has quietly become one of the largest efforts anywhere in the world to put farmers at the centre of a country's clean-energy transition, not just as beneficiaries of it, but as producers of power themselves. From "Annadata" to "Urjadata" Launched by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in March 2019, PM-KUSUM was built around a simple but ambitious idea: farmers, who spend heavily on diesel and depend on unreliable grid electricity for irrigation, could instead generate their own solar power — enough to run their pumps, and sell the surplus back to the grid.
The scheme's framing captures this shift neatly: farmers who were once seen purely as Annadata (food providers) are now being positioned as Urjadata — energy providers too. The scheme runs across three components, each targeting a different layer of India's agricultural power problem: Component-A supports setting up 10,000 MW of small, decentralised solar power plants on farmers' barren or fallow land — plants that can be built by individual farmers, cooperatives, panchayats, or solar developers, with the electricity sold directly to state distribution companies (DISCOMs). Component-B funds standalone, off-grid solar irrigation pumps of up to 7. 5 HP for farmers in areas without reliable grid access, cutting diesel dependence entirely in regions the grid doesn't reliably reach.
Component-C solarises pumps that are already connected to the grid — either individually, or at the feeder level — so farmers can draw daytime power from the sun instead of an erratic supply, while excess generation is sold back to DISCOMs at a fixed tariff. The Numbers Behind the Shift By the end of April 2026, the scale of what's been built becomes clearer. Component-A had crossed roughly 1,200 MW of installed capacity against a 10,000 MW target. Under Component-B, more than 10.
9 lakh standalone solar pumps had been installed against a sanctioned target of over 13 lakh — meaning more than three-quarters of the goal has already been met. Component-C, aimed at converting existing grid-connected pumps, has also picked up sharply: government data shows a 25-fold jump in feeder-level solarisation in a single year, alongside a more than fourfold rise in Component-B installations over the previous fiscal year. The financial commitment has scaled alongside the ambition. In the Union Budget for 2026-27, the government nearly doubled its allocation for the scheme, taking it from roughly ₹2,600 crore to ₹5,000 crore — a signal that this isn't a pilot program winding down, but one being prepared for a much larger second act.
A Real Story Behind the Data: Jammu & Kashmir Numbers at the national level can feel abstract, but the scheme's uptake in individual states shows how it plays out on the ground. In Jammu & Kashmir, the government sanctioned 5,000 standalone off-grid solar pumps under Component-B. As of late November in the current fiscal year, 3,601 of those pumps were already installed and running — making J&K one of the stronger-performing Union Territories under the scheme, even as officials noted that no solar power plants or feeder-level solarisation projects had yet been commissioned there under Components A or C. It's a useful reminder that PM-KUSUM's rollout isn't uniform: some regions are racing ahead on off-grid pumps while barely starting on grid-scale solar plants, and vice versa elsewhere.
What's Changed on the Ground Beyond raw installation counts, the technology being deployed has matured considerably since the scheme's early years. Newer installations increasingly come fitted with Remote Monitoring Systems that let both farmers and government agencies track pump performance and water discharge through a mobile app — turning what used to be a purely mechanical piece of farm equipment into something closer to a connected asset. Component-C installations are also being paired with Universal Solar Pump Controllers, which let farmers run other equipment — grinders, threshers — off the same inverter when the irrigation pump isn't in use, effectively giving a single solar setup more than one job on the farm. And the panels themselves have shifted toward high-efficiency mono-PERC technology, designed to keep generating meaningfully even under cloud cover or low light — a practical concern in a country where monsoon-season irrigation needs don't pause for overcast skies.
For farmers, the economics are straightforward enough to explain the scheme's traction: subsidies typically cover 60% of the cost of standalone pumps in general-category states (rising to 80% in northeastern and hilly states), with a government-backed loan often covering a further share of the remainder — leaving farmers to fund only a modest portion out of pocket for a system that then removes their single largest recurring irrigation cost. What Comes Next: PM-KUSUM 2. 0 The current phase of the scheme was slated to conclude around March 2026, and rather than simply extending it, the government has signalled a shift toward a significantly expanded second phase. Speaking at the 4th National Agro-RE Summit in March 2026, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi confirmed that the ministry is preparing PM-KUSUM 2.
0 — reportedly being planned with an outlay in the range of ₹50,000 crore, alongside newer concepts like agro-photovoltaic models (which allow crops to be grown beneath elevated solar panels on the same plot of land) and battery storage integration, addressing one of the original scheme's practical limitations: solar power generated during the day but needed after dark. India is also looking outward with what it's built. Through the International Solar Alliance, the government has begun exploring how to extend the PM-KUSUM model of farmer-led solar irrigation to countries in Africa and to island nations facing similar challenges — agricultural regions with unreliable grid access and heavy reliance on diesel for water pumping. A Scheme Still Finding Its Full Scale PM-KUSUM's story so far is one of steady, uneven, but genuinely large-scale progress — a program that has moved well past pilot stage on solar pumps specifically, while grid-scale decentralised solar plants under Component-A still have considerable distance left to cover against their 10,000 MW target.
What makes it worth watching isn't just the installation counts, but the shift in framing it represents: irrigation infrastructure that used to be a pure cost centre for Indian farmers is being rebuilt, field by field, into something that can generate income of its own. Whether PM-KUSUM 2. 0 can close the gap on Component-A while sustaining the pace on B and C will likely determine how much of India's promised "green revolution" for its farmers actually reaches full scale.