Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
The Farmer Who Has Always Fed the Nation is Now also Lighting it up, with the Annadata Becoming an Urjadata: Union Minister Shri Pralhad Joshi
PrelimsMainsGS2GS3GovernanceEnvironmentEconomyGovernment SchemesAgriculture
Source-grounded summary
Union Minister Shri Pralhad Joshi announced that the next phase of the PM-KUSUM scheme will feature a dedicated component for agrivoltaics, allowing farmers to produce food and clean energy from the same land. Speaking at the curtain-raiser event for the 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026, the Minister highlighted that agrivoltaics provides farmers with three income streams: from crops sold, electricity sold to DISCOMs, and diesel savings. He noted that India has added 55.29 GW of non-fossil capacity, solarised around 29 lakh pumps under PM-KUSUM, and trained nearly 70,000 Surya Mitras. The 7th Agrivoltaics World Conference 2026 is scheduled to be held from October 21 to 23 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.