Chandigarh’s rooftop solar push has hit a major slowdown, and residents say the main reason is policy restrictions, billing mistakes, and slow grievance redressal. At a meeting organised by CREST, more than 80 members from various resident welfare associations came forward to share their problems with the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana.
Even though Chandigarh is known as a model solar city, rooftop solar systems have been installed on only 928 out of 43,000 residential houses, showing very slow adoption.
Residents said the biggest hurdle is the roof-right restriction in Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) flats, which stops around 60,000 families from installing solar panels. Many demanded immediate policy changes so that more households can participate in the scheme.
People also complained about frequent overbilling, slow error correction, unclear settlement of banked units, delays in meter testing, pending subsidies, and confusion regarding PPA terms and load enhancement charges.
Several residents with buildings having multiple electricity connections said the installation process becomes even more complicated due to unclear guidelines.
Officials from CREST, CPDL, CHB, and the municipal corporation were present and shared that 148 out of 673 registered beneficiaries have already managed to reduce their bills to zero under the scheme. But residents said that unless these policy gaps and billing issues are fixed soon, Chandigarh’s solar adoption will continue to remain stuck.
Source
0 Comments