Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that about 1 crore households will get 300 units of free electricity under the rooftop solar scheme. Following the announcement, shares of green energy and related stocks jumped up to 7% with IREDA, KPI Energy and Websol Energy leading the rally.

While IREDA and Websol were each up 5%, Suzlon Energy and Sterling and Wilson rose 4% and 2%, respectively. Meanwhile, shares of Tata Power, Adani Green and NHPC were up 1% each. Shares of KPI Green Energy jumped as much as 7%.

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Prime Minister Modi had on January 22 first announced a rooftop solar project scheme to make India self-reliant in the field of energy.

Read more: Track live Budget day market updatesThe government will enlist state-run power sector companies such as NTPC, NHPC, Power Grid and SJVN to support its efforts to push households to adopt the rooftop solar programme.”Under the scheme, households can save up to Rs 15,000-18,000 from free solar electricity. Discoms will also benefit from the selling surplus that will be available at their disposal,” Sitharaman said in her budget speech.For getting subsidy under existing regulations, residential consumers must install rooftop solar plants from one of the vendors registered by the distribution company of their locality.

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There will be designated companies for each state to implement the programme. A consumer could put in a request to join the programme by calling a phone number, according to government officials.

The move is expected to significantly increase the number of installations as cost is a major hurdle for the residential sector, especially in houses with 1-3 kW load. Currently, a rooftop project costs a minimum of Rs 50,000 per kW to set up. The cost per kW reduces as capacity goes higher.

The industry was expecting the budget to strongly emphasize enhancing India’s manufacturing capabilities for developing infrastructure in green energy production.

“We may see an increased push towards green energy/clean energy in the budget. Government is expected to continue support for the investment cycle in the budget,” analysts had said in the pre-Budget wishlist.

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