New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today unveiled AAP’s ’10 guarantees’ if his party wins the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Mr Kejriwal’s assurances encompass a broad spectrum of public welfare initiatives, including pledges for free electricity and improved healthcare.

“BJP has always failed on its promises; my guarantees have proven track record,” Mr Kejriwal said. “People have to take a call whether to go for ‘Kejriwal ki Guarantee’ or ‘Modi Guarantee.”

At the forefront of Mr Kejriwal’s electoral promises is the assurance of free electricity for all, particularly targeting the economically backward sections of society. The AAP chief advocated for replicating Delhi’s model of uninterrupted power supply nationwide. 

“Out of the 10 guarantees, the first guarantee is that we will provide 24-hour electricity in the country. The country has the capacity to generate 3 lakh MW of electricity but the usage is only 2 lakh MW. Our country can produce more electricity than the demand. We have done it in Delhi and Punjab, we will do it in the country also. We will provide up to 200 units of free electricity to all the poor. It will cost Rs 1.25 lakh crore, we can arrange it,” Mr Kejriwal said. 

Second on Mr Kejriwal’s poll guarantees list is revamping education in government schools. The Delhi Chief Minister claimed that Rs 5 lakh crore will be required to remedy that and that state governments and the Centre should pay Rs 2.5 lakh crore each to make up for the total cost. 

“Today, the condition of our government schools is not good. Our second guarantee is that we will arrange good and excellent free education for everyone. Government schools will provide a better education than private schools. We have done it in Delhi and Punjab. Rs 5 lakh crore will be required for this. State governments will give Rs 2.5 lakh crore and central government will give Rs 2.5 crore for this,” he said. 

The AAP national convener also put a Rs 5 lakh crore price tag to overhaul government hospitals and improve India’s healthcare infrastructure. 

“The condition of our government hospital is not good in our country. Our third guarantee is better healthcare. We will arrange good treatment for everyone. Mohalla clinics will be opened in every village, every locality. District hospital will be converted into a Multispeciality Hospital. Every person born in this country will get free treatment. Treatment will not be done on the basis of insurance as this is a big scam. We will create infrastructure. Rs 5 lakh crore rupees will be spent on healthcare,” Mr Kejriwal said. 

Other guarantees on the list, according to Mr Kejriwal, are “freeing” Indian land from Chinese control, shutting down the Agniveer scheme, providing farmers MSP as per the Swaminathan Commission report and a full statehood to Delhi. 

“Our fourth guarantee is ‘Nation first’. China has occupied our land but our central govt is denying it…There is a lot of strength in our army. All the land of the country which has been occupied by China will be freed. For this, efforts will be made at the diplomatic level on one side and the Army will be given complete freedom to take whatever steps it wants to take regarding this. A scheme like Agniveer is harmful for the army and the youth are also troubled by it. The Agniveer scheme will be withdrawn,” Mr Kejriwal said. 

Mr Kejriwal, who was arrested by the probe agency Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Delhi excise policy scam case, was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court on Friday.

Watch | One crore households to get 300 units free electricity every month through rooftop solarisation

Taking cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance following the Ayodhya temple consecration that one crore households will be electrified via rooftop solar installations, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Interim Budget 2024-25, reiterated that commitment. “Through rooftop solarisation, one crore households will be enabled to obtain up to 300 units free electricity every month…. this would translate to benefits of ₹15,000-18,000 annually for households from free solar electricity and selling the surplus to the distribution companies,” she said in her address.

The average all India household consumption of electricity is about 100 units a month, with only few States such as Delhi approaching close to 300 units, suggest public data. The net-metering policy allows users of rooftop solar power to supply their surplus power back to the grid and thus offsetting their electricity bills.

Budget 2024 updates

Whether the government would fund new installations or only subsidise those installing new ones — the latter has been a practice for years — and the demographic that the scheme was targeting was not specified in Ms. Sitharaman’s address.

Last year, the government spent ₹2,167 crore on its rooftop solar power programme and for 2024-25, it has budgeted ₹4,555 crore, according to the Budget documents updated on Thursday.

India currently has about 11 GW of installed rooftop solar capacity, of which only 2.7 GW are in residential units and the rest in commercial or industrial spaces. There is no centralised national estimate of how many of India’s estimated 30 crore households have rooftop solar units, though as The Hindu reported last month citing estimates from experts, it is unlikely to be over 10 lakh. The Finance Minister also did not indicate a time line for the installations.

Also read: Key takeaways from interim Budget 2024-25 in charts

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) estimates the cost of installing a 1-2 kW (kilowatt) system at about ₹43,000 per unit. Units up to 3kW are eligible for a subsidy of about ₹14,000 per unit.

Limited consumption

India’s low uptake of rooftop solar systems is largely due to limited electricity consumption and existing subsidies for coal-fired electricity that make even subsidised solar power expensive, suggested the result of a research spanning 14,000 households across 21 States, a study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) had reported in November 2023.

Neeraj Kuldeep, Senior Programme Lead, CEEW said in a statement on Thursday that 20-25 GW worth of rooftop solar capacity could be supported through solarisation of 1 crore households. Residential consumers receive subsidised electricity from distribution companies (discom) and were such households to ‘solarise,’ it would save discoms about ₹2 lakh crore over the next 25 years (the solar plant’s life). “All States can leverage this opportunity as rooftop solar potential exists everywhere, unlike utility-scale solar (solar parks), which is primarily restricted to seven RE-rich States, he added.

Because solar power is only available during the day and battery storage systems are expensive, the global experience with rooftop solar is that most households with solar panels also rely on electricity from the grid.

Ms. Sitharaman also announced a ‘viability gap funding’ to support the capital intensive offshore wind sector, of up to 1 gigawatt capacity. These are wind farms located in the sea.

Though no details or budgetary allocations were announced, it is expected to encourage private sector investments in the sector, with the government committing to pitch in with a portion of the required installation costs.

Sea-based windfarms are expensive but given that strong winds are more consistent in the sea, they are projected as being more reliable sources of wind power. India currently has about 44 GW of wind installation, all on land. Studies show a potential of almost 72 GW of offshore wind from the seas off Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.