The Government has issued operational guidelines for the implementation of Model Solar Village under PM-Surya Ghar-Muft Bijli Yojana today. The New and Renewable Energy Ministry in a statement said that under the scheme emphasis has been placed on creating one Model Solar Village per district across the country. The Ministry said that a total financial outlay of 800 crore rupees has been allocated for this component, providing 1 crore rupees per selected Model Solar Village. It said that to be considered under this scheme, a village must be a revenue village with a population size above 5,000 or 2,000 for special category states.

The Ministry said that the villages will be assessed on their overall distributed renewable energy capacity installed in six months after the declaration of the potential candidate by the District Level Committee. The winning village in each district, with the highest renewable energy capacity will receive a central financial assistance grant of one crore rupees.

In February this year, the government approved this scheme intending to increase the share of solar rooftop capacity and empower residential households to generate their electricity.