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The Madhepura district administration in Bihar has gone strict to speed up the central government’s ambitious ‘PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana’ and provide timely benefits to consumers.
A high-level meeting was held on Wednesday in Jhallu Babu Auditorium located in the DRDA campus of the district headquarters to thoroughly review the progress of loan applications pending in various banks under the scheme.
The PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana is a national government program in India that provides financial subsidies and collateral-free loans to install rooftop solar panels and help households get free electricity up to 300 units per month.
Under this scheme, the Central Government provides a fixed subsidy of ₹30,000 for a 1 kW system and ₹60,000 for a 2 kW system. For any installation capacity of 3 kW or higher, the subsidy is capped at a maximum of ₹78,000.
The Government is focussing heavily on implementation of this scheme.
Presiding over the meeting, District Magistrate Abhishek Ranjan reviewed each point with Deputy Development Commissioner Arun Kumar, all the electrical engineers of the district and branch managers of various banks.
During the review, the District Magistrate expressed displeasure over the long backlog of applications in banks. He issued clear instructions to all branch managers to ensure timely processing of pending applications. Loans to eligible consumers should be approved without delay, and the approved funds should be disbursed on a priority basis.
The District Magistrate directed the engineers of the Electricity Department to maintain an updated and systematic database of consumers with pending loans. He also directed them to coordinate continuously with the managers of the respective bank branches to remove obstacles in loan approvals.
DM Abhishek Ranjan stated categorically that no unnecessary delays will be tolerated in installing rooftop solar plants after the bank disburses the loan amount. Solar panels should be installed within the stipulated timeframe in 100% of approved cases. He directed officials to widely publicize the scheme so that as many eligible families in the district as possible can connect to solar energy and benefit from free electricity.
But, there is a genuine concern of Bank employees. A lot of loans are turning into NPA. On one side, Government forces bank managers to sanction loan and on the other hand, Bank management forces bank managers to recover loans if account turns NPA.
Bank Management does not want any loan account to slip into NPA. If an account slips into NPA, then the bank management takes strict action against bank manager.
