Almost every failed PM Surya Ghar claim fails for a procedural reason, not a technical one. The system works, the roof is fine, the paperwork is simply out of order — and by the time anyone notices, the panels are already on the roof and the money has already been spent. Here are the failure points that matter, in the order they tend to bite.
This is the big one, and it is the one installers cause most often.
PM Surya Ghar runs in two phases. First you apply and your DISCOM — JdVVNL in Jodhpur — issues a feasibility approval. Only then do you install. After commissioning, you submit the claim and the subsidy is paid into your bank account.
Install before that first approval and you have no protection at all. There is no rule that says a DISCOM must approve retrospectively, and if it does not, the subsidy is simply gone. You still own a working solar system; you have just paid ₹78,000 more for it than you needed to.
Any installer who tells you to start now and "apply in parallel to save time" is offering to spend your subsidy to shorten their own schedule. The correct sequence is described in more detail in our step-by-step guide to the PM Surya Ghar application.
ALMM — the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, maintained by the MNRE — decides which modules are eligible for subsidy. Not which modules are good. Which modules are eligible.
A non-ALMM panel can be a perfectly decent panel. It can also be cheaper, which is exactly why it turns up in low quotes. But if it is not on the list, the claim fails at verification, and by then the panel is bolted to your roof.
Ask for the make, model and wattage in writing before you sign, and check that exact model against the current list. A quote that names only "540W mono panels" without a manufacturer and model number is not a quote you can verify. We go through this and the rest of the eligibility rules on our solar subsidy page.
Your eligibility is not the only eligibility being checked. The vendor must be registered on the national portal, and the installation has to be filed against them.
This catches people who hire a local electrician to save money. The work may be sound and the panels may be ALMM-listed, but if no registered vendor is attached to the application, there is nothing for the DISCOM to verify against.
Ask directly: are you registered on the PM Surya Ghar portal, and will this installation be filed under your registration? Get the answer in writing.
The subsidy is paid by direct transfer, and the chain of names has to hold together:
If the connection is still in your late father's name, or your mother's, and the application is in yours, the claim will not clear — regardless of who actually paid for the system. The same applies when the bank account belongs to a spouse.
This is fixable, but only before you apply. Transferring a connection into your own name takes time at the DISCOM, so start it early rather than discovering the mismatch at claim stage. If a transfer is genuinely impractical, apply in the name that is already on the connection.
The subsidy is credited directly to a bank account, which means an IFSC typo or an account that is dormant, frozen or not KYC-complete will hold up a claim that is otherwise perfectly valid.
It is worth checking that the account is active and that the name on it matches the application exactly — not "R. Sharma" against "Ramesh Kumar Sharma". Small mismatches take weeks to resolve through a portal.
You cannot sanction 8 kW of solar on a 3 kW connection and expect it to pass. If your proposed system exceeds your sanctioned load, either the system size comes down or you apply to the DISCOM for a load enhancement first.
This one is genuinely worth understanding before you shop, because it changes what you should be buying. It also interacts with the subsidy slab in a way people find counter-intuitive: ₹30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW, ₹18,000 for the third, and then nothing more — the cap is ₹78,000 and a 3 kW system already reaches it. Going bigger is often the right decision, but never because you expect a bigger subsidy.
After installation, the DISCOM inspects and installs a net meter. Earthing, the lightning arrestor, the isolation switch, cable sizing, the structure — these get looked at, and a system that was built to hit a low price is where problems surface.
A failed inspection is not usually fatal; it means rework and a re-inspection, which costs time. But it is a reminder that the parts of an installation nobody photographs are the parts an inspector checks. Our installation process page sets out what should be happening at each stage.
A rejection usually names a reason. Read it literally rather than assuming the worst.
Most rejections are document-level — a mismatch, a missing upload, an unreadable scan — and can be corrected and resubmitted. A genuine eligibility failure, such as a non-ALMM module already installed, is harder, and sometimes the honest answer is that the subsidy is not recoverable for that system.
Either way, the current rules and status live on pmsuryaghar.gov.in. Check there rather than trusting any installer's website, including ours — government schemes change, and a page that was accurate when it was written can quietly stop being accurate.
Approval first, then install. ALMM-listed modules, named in writing. A registered installer. One consistent name across the connection, the application and the bank account. A system size your sanctioned load supports.
None of that is difficult. It just has to happen in the right order, and most of it has to happen before anyone climbs onto your roof.
We handle the filing and the follow-up as part of every installation, but we will not promise you an approval or a disbursal date — those belong to the DISCOM and the government, and any installer who guarantees either is telling you something they cannot know.