Every morning across rural India, millions of farmers start their day by fuelling a diesel pump. For a small landholder in Haryana, that ritual costs between ₹8,000 and ₹12,000 a month when diesel is at ₹88.40 per litre (at the time of writing of this article) in the state. That fuel bill, month after month, is what keeps farm incomes where they are.

India runs its farms on approximately nine million diesel-powered irrigation pumps, each emitting 5.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year on a fuel that cost ₹38.5 per litre in 2010 and has more than doubled since. The Government of India launched PM-KUSUM in 2019 as a direct intervention to transition agriculture from diesel to solar.

A scheme built to create energy producers, not just consumers

PM-KUSUM has three tracks. The first puts solar power plants on agricultural land. The second replaces diesel pumps with standalone solar sets in off-grid areas. The third solarises grid-connected pumps so farmers get reliable power through the day. Central allocation stands at ₹34,422 crore, target at 34,800 MW — and the farmer, in this framing, is an energy producer.

By February 2026, approximately 12,164 MW had been installed, with over 10 lakh standalone pumps deployed and feeder-level solarisation covering more than 13 lakh pumps. Government data puts the total number of farmers reached across 31 states over 20 lakh. For a farmer running a standard 5 HP solar pump, that translates to at least ₹60,000 saved annually on fuel — the system typically pays for itself in under a year.

Haryana’s playbook: Go further than the Centre asks

Haryana shows what happens when a state goes further than the Centre asks. It has deployed 1,36,572 solar pumps — 981 MW of off-grid solar under PM-KUSUM, second in the country — and reached 69 per cent of its sanctioned target. Part of the reason is the subsidy stack: the central 30 per cent is topped up with another 45 per cent from the state, so farmers end up paying just 25 per cent. Haryana has also set a 6,000 MW solar target for 2030, with 1,200 MW specifically for irrigation — a sign that this is planned as permanent infrastructure, not a scheme.

PM-KUSUM is not the only piece. PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana has added 9.56 GW of rooftop solar and reached 32.4 lakh households as of March 2026 — up to 300 units free a month, with surplus sold back to the grid. Together, the two schemes are converting electricity from a cost into an income.

The next step: Power and crops from the same acre

Agricultural solar is now moving beyond pump replacement. In agrivoltaics, panels go up over working farmland and crops carry on underneath. The shade turns out to be useful too — it reduces heat stress on plants and slows moisture loss from the soil. Pilots in Andhra Pradesh have shown that the model works at the farm scale, and for farmers already on PM-KUSUM, it opens a path from cost savings to earning from two sources at once.

In April 2026, MNRE pushed the PM-KUSUM completion deadline to March 2027 for projects with signed power purchase agreements. It also announced PM-KUSUM 2.0, which would add battery storage — the idea being to hold midday solar generation and release it when farmers actually need to irrigate, in the early morning and evening. Financing gaps and awareness in remote districts remain, but the policy direction has not wavered.

India’s solar installed capacity has crossed 143 GW, putting the country third in the world. Agriculture is central to that story. The transition from diesel to solar is no longer on the horizon — it is already happening at scale. The farmer who once pulled a diesel cord at dawn is, more and more, the one selling power back to the grid before noon.

The author is CEO of Aroma Solar

Published on April 12, 2026