Filling in the application takes about twenty minutes. Everything after that is waiting, and almost all of the waiting happens inside your distribution company rather than on the portal.
That is the most useful thing to understand before you start. The scheme is national and the money is national, but the two slowest gates — feasibility approval and the net meter — are controlled by your local DISCOM, and DISCOMs move at very different speeds.
Before you open the portal
Four things need to be true, and checking them now saves weeks later.
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| The connection is residential | Commercial, industrial and non-domestic categories do not qualify |
| Bill, bank account and property proof carry the same name | The subsidy is a bank transfer, and it will not land on a mismatch |
| Sanctioned load is at least as big as the system you want | Many states cap the system at the sanctioned load |
| The roof is clear through the generating hours | Shading is not a scheme problem, but it is the one that wastes the money |
The sanctioned load check is the one people skip. It is printed on your electricity bill, usually in kW. If it says 2 kW and you want a 3 kW system, you may need a load enhancement application at the DISCOM first — a separate process, with its own queue, which can add a month before you have even started the solar application.
Step 1 — Register on the national portal
You register on the PM Surya Ghar national portal with your state, your DISCOM, your electricity consumer number and a mobile number. The consumer number is on your bill. Use the mobile number you actually answer, because every status change arrives there.
Keep the login written down somewhere. You will come back to this account several times over the next few months, including at the very end to enter bank details.
Step 2 — Apply for feasibility approval
Next you apply for technical feasibility. Your DISCOM is checking whether your connection and the local network can take the proposed capacity — transformer headroom, your sanctioned load, your connection category.
Do not install anything until this comes back approved. A system installed before approval is the one rejection that cannot be repaired afterwards.
Step 3 — Choose a vendor from the portal list
Once feasibility is approved you select an installer. This is not a free choice: the vendor must be empanelled on the portal for your state. An empanelled vendor can file the subsidy claim against your application. One who is not cannot, and no amount of paperwork afterwards fixes it.
Check the portal list yourself rather than taking a vendor's word. "We will arrange the subsidy" is not the same sentence as "we are empanelled in your state", and the gap between those two sentences is Rs 78,000.
Empanelment is a registration, not a quality rating. It tells you the paperwork will work. It tells you nothing about the installation, which is a separate assessment — reading the quotation line by line is how you make it.
Step 4 — Installation, and paying in full
Installation itself is fast. A domestic rooftop system is usually two to five days on site, covering the structure, the panels, the inverter, the cabling and the earthing.
You pay the vendor the full amount. The subsidy is not a discount applied to his invoice. It reaches your bank account later, by direct benefit transfer, after the DISCOM has inspected and commissioned the system.
So on a 3 kW system quoted at Rs 1,75,000 you pay Rs 1,75,000 now and recover Rs 78,000 somewhere between three and five months later. Your net cost is Rs 97,000, but your cash position for most of a year is the full amount.
What the wait actually costs you
If you borrow the subsidy portion to bridge the gap, price the bridge. It is a small number, but it is a real one and nobody mentions it.
Redo that with your own rate and your own expected wait. At bank solar-loan rates it is negligible. On a credit card for six months it is not.
Step 5 — Net metering application, inspection and the meter change
This is where the calendar goes quiet, and it is three separate events rather than one.
- The net metering application goes to the DISCOM after installation, usually filed by the vendor.
- An inspection follows. An official visits, checks the installation against what was approved, and verifies the earthing and the protection equipment.
- The meter change. Your ordinary meter is replaced with a bi-directional one that records import and export separately.
Until that meter is in, your surplus goes to the grid unrecorded and you get nothing for it. Your panels are generating, your inverter is showing numbers, and your bill behaves as though nothing happened. This is the stage worth chasing hardest, because every week of delay is genuinely your money.
Step 6 — Bank details, and the transfer
After commissioning you submit bank details on the portal — account number, IFSC, and usually a cancelled cheque or a passbook page. The account holder name has to match the applicant.
Then the subsidy is credited by direct benefit transfer. Realistically three to ten weeks after commissioning.
The realistic timeline
The portal publishes a short indicative timeline. The table below is what the stages tend to take once a DISCOM is involved.
| Stage | Realistic time | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Registration and application | 1 – 3 days | You |
| DISCOM feasibility approval | 2 – 4 weeks | DISCOM |
| Vendor selection and site survey | 1 – 2 weeks | You and the vendor |
| Installation | 2 – 5 days | Vendor |
| DISCOM inspection | 1 – 3 weeks | DISCOM |
| Net meter installation | 2 – 8 weeks | DISCOM |
| Subsidy transfer after commissioning | 3 – 10 weeks | Portal and bank |
| Application to money in the account | 3 – 5 months | Mostly the DISCOM |
Read the third column. Four of the seven stages are neither yours nor your vendor's. That is why two neighbours who applied in the same week can finish eleven weeks apart, and why any promise of subsidy in thirty days is describing a best case rather than a plan.
Documents to have ready
| Document | Used for |
|---|---|
| Latest electricity bill | Consumer number, connection category, sanctioned load |
| Identity proof | Must match the name on the bill |
| Bank passbook or cancelled cheque | Where the subsidy is credited |
| Property ownership proof | Registry, tax receipt or allotment letter |
| Roof photograph | Some DISCOMs ask at the feasibility stage |
Scan everything once, legibly, and keep it in one folder. A good share of the delay that looks like government slowness is a document being re-uploaded because the first copy was a photograph of a photograph.
What to chase, and when
- Day 21 with no feasibility decision. Visit the DISCOM office with your application number. Phone calls achieve less.
- Two weeks after installation with no inspection. Ask your vendor for the net metering application reference, then follow it up yourself.
- Four weeks after inspection with no meter. This is the expensive delay. Chase it weekly.
- Eight weeks after commissioning with no credit. Check the portal status first. It is usually a bank detail mismatch rather than a queue.
Questions people ask
Can the vendor do the whole application for me?
Most empanelled vendors will, and it is usually worth letting them. Keep your own portal login anyway and check the status yourself at each stage. The bank details at the end should be entered by you.
Should I apply before or after choosing a vendor?
Register and get feasibility approval first. You then choose from the empanelled list knowing what capacity has actually been approved, which is a far stronger position to negotiate from.
What if I want more than 3 kW?
You can install it, subject to your sanctioned load and the DISCOM's approval, but the central subsidy does not grow. It stops at Rs 78,000. The subsidy guide works through what that does to the economics, and the subsidy calculator shows the slab arithmetic for any size you type in.
Does a state top-up need a separate application?
It depends on the state. Some are processed alongside the central claim, some run through a separate state portal, and some states have no scheme at all. Ask your DISCOM directly. This is the part of the process that varies most and the part most likely to have changed since anything you read online was written.
My application was rejected. Can I reapply?
Usually yes, once the underlying problem is fixed, and most problems are documentary rather than technical. The common failure modes and their fixes are set out in why subsidy applications get rejected.
Do I need the net meter before the subsidy is released?
In practice yes. The claim is processed after the DISCOM has inspected and commissioned the system, and the meter change is part of that sequence. It is why the DISCOM stage drives the whole timeline.
Is there any way to make this faster?
Only two levers, and both are at the start. Get your sanctioned load and your name mismatches sorted out before you apply, and pick a vendor who files cleanly the first time. Everything after that is a queue you can chase but cannot shorten.