Powering Rural Transformation

January 07, 2026

How decentralised solar is reshaping livelihoods in India

This report explores how decentralised renewable energy is changing everyday economic realities in rural India, drawing on 21 case studies from five states. It captures a wide range of solar-powered applications, deployed in places where the grid has failed to deliver reliable power. Across diverse social and geographic settings, the analysis distils lessons from practice, identifies scalable models, and speaks directly to those working on policy, implementation, and investment. The evidence goes beyond electricity access, showing how solar enables new enterprises, raises farm and allied incomes, strengthens community ownership, and expands women’s participation in local economies, offering a practical pathway for taking decentralised energy solutions to scale.

• Jharkhand’s remote tribal interiors, where community-owned mini-grids have replaced unreliable grid promises and expensive diesel, mechanising agriculture and empowering women-led governance.
• Assam’s water-locked aquaculture communities, where innovative floating solar arrays double fish production through constant aeration in off-grid water bodies.
• Uttar Pradesh’s agrarian villages, where private solar-powered flour mills demonstrate commercial viability and rapid investment recovery while bypassing erratic grid supply.
• Meghalaya’s hilly clusters, where solar reeling machines are reviving traditional Eri silk heritage and tripling the earnings of women artisans.
• Karnataka’s southern farmlands, where solar mechanisation in dairy and food processing has built structured local employment ecosystems for rural workers.

Yet scaling these successes remains difficult. Weak institutional coordination and policy frameworks focused on capacity targets rather than finance, markets, and long-term integration continue to limit the shift from scattered projects to a nationwide transformation.

Download the full report to see how these models work on the ground.

For more information, please contact

Binit Das
+91 80933262629
binit.das@cseindia.org