PM-KUSUM is India's flagship solar irrigation scheme, launched in 2019 with three components. Component A sets up 0.5–2 MW solar plants on farmers' land for additional income; Component B installs stand-alone solar pumps; and Component C solarises existing grid-connected pumps — either individually (C-IPS) or at the feeder level (C-FLS). Components A and C-FLS are unique because they promote medium-scale plants (1–10 MW) connected to rural distribution substations — a model between conventional utility-scale and rooftop solar, requiring novel procurement processes and grid readiness.

The report identifies seven interconnected barriers. SERCs set tariffs below actual market costs — the gap was largest when module prices spiked in 2021–23. DISCOMs were often excluded from scheme design. Land identification and right-of-way clearances proved far harder than anticipated near agricultural substations. Financing was inaccessible for new-entrant developers. Abrupt policy changes on customs duties and domestic content requirements froze tenders. Low farmer awareness and poor scheme branding compounded all of the above.

Under C-FLS, agricultural connections now receive reliable daytime power — previously many received power only at night, creating safety risks. Under Component A, farmers leasing land earned an average of INR 30,000/acre/year. Those investing in their own solar plants achieved estimated returns of 11–16% on investment, though capital requirements (INR 3–4.5 crores per MW) exclude most smallholders. The lease-based model was designed to address this gap, but awareness of it remains very low.

Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Rajasthan are the top performers. Maharashtra succeeded by positioning its DISCOM (MSEDCL) as lead agency, creating a pre-cleared government land bank, adopting cluster-based tenders for economies of scale, and establishing a revolving payment guarantee fund. Gujarat and Rajasthan attracted smaller developers by relaxing entry criteria and adopting competitive bidding without ceiling tariffs — discovering market-reflective prices. The common thread is DISCOM ownership and iterative experimentation.

The report calls for cooperative federalism: national guidelines should define objectives and financial incentives but leave deployment models to states. DISCOMs must be placed at the centre of planning, with solarisation targets embedded in their power procurement plans. Tariff frameworks should shift to competitive bidding. States need to build an incentive stack — land banks, payment guarantee funds, financing partnerships, and grid reinforcement plans. Inter-departmental coordination between energy, revenue, and agriculture departments must be institutionalised.

Rural distribution substations face frequent voltage fluctuations, transformer overloading, and tripping — particularly during peak irrigation season. As capacity scales, reverse power flow during non-irrigation seasons will become a serious challenge. The report recommends proactive substation-wise hosting capacity assessments, incentivising solar inverters to provide reactive power compensation (as piloted in Madhya Pradesh), and IoT-based virtual feeder segregation as a scalable, low-cost alternative to physical feeder separation.

The report aims to address a critical gap in India's just energy transition discourse by understanding how coal mine workers perceive their own skills and their chances of finding alternative employment. Knowing these baseline skills and personal preferences is a prerequisite for effective job transition planning. The study focuses on assessing the skills, preferences and future opportunities of non-executive workers across both opencast and underground mines in Jharsuguda, Odisha.

Workers across various hierarchies possess a strong foundation of generic, technical, and soft skills. The vast majority are financially and digitally literate, meaning they can operate bank accounts and easily access the internet on their mobile phones. General mazdoors carry out basic technical tasks and adhere to safety measures. Meanwhile, operators and technicians demonstrate a firm grasp of complex machinery, and mining supervisors blend this technical expertise with strong people management abilities.

Most of the workforce has developed its technical capabilities organically through learning by doing and peer-to-peer observation at the mines. Only a quarter of the surveyed workers had undergone formal skills training before taking up their current jobs, leaving the majority without officially recognised credentials. Implementing the National Credit Framework for the recognition of prior learning is therefore highly recommended. This will allow workers to aggregate a formal skill portfolio and significantly improve their mobility across different economic sectors.

Coal mine jobs generally offer much higher compensation and better non-wage benefits compared to casual work in other industries. For example, a contractual coal worker typically earns between INR 20,000 and INR 25,000 per month, whereas most casual workers in other sectors earn less than INR 15,000. Departmental workers earn even more, making a wage-matched transition difficult. Consequently, nearly 79 per cent of the surveyed workforce naturally expects to earn lower wages if they move outside the coal sector.

Nearly 61 per cent of the surveyed workers feel there are limited job opportunities outside of coal mining in their local area. Furthermore, a significant portion of the workforce, particularly those native to Odisha, shows a strong reluctance to relocate for new employment. To address this, the report stresses the need to strategically attract non-coal industries to these districts. Using the AI-driven SMART platform, the study identified the iron and steel, food processing, and automotive sectors as having a high skill proximity to mining roles. Decarbonising and expanding these heavy industries locally could provide viable, well-paid alternative livelihoods.

A well balanced battery ecosystem includes three parts that work in tandem and support each other- Manufacturing, deployment and end-of-life processes. Manufacturing consists of research to commercialisation of different components that are a part of the battery, deployment relates to consumption via various large and small-scale applications and end-of-life processes include the various principles of circularity that are used to manage the used batteries. Development of domestic technologies and local manufacturing of various battery components ensures supply chain resilience and enables technological sovereignty. This segment is supported by steady deployment trajectories which ensures product offtake and enables scale-up. The end-of-life processing segments can strengthen the manufacturing supply chain by providing critical materials from spent batteries for new ones. Increase in indigenisation of these segments can help to- create a robust battery sector, create green jobs, pose India as one of the strong players in cleantech manufacturing, and advance economic growth.

Sodium-ion batteries can be used for a variety of applications such as two and three wheeler EVs, grid-scale storage, forklifts, high power medical equipment, vehicle starter batteries for high altitude regions, drones, missile ground systems, telecom, and AI data centres.

The cathode material is usually chosen from three groups of materials- Prussian blue analogues (PBAs), Layered oxides (LOs) and Polyanionic compounds (PACs). Commercialised chemistries of LOs require nickel and titanium and PACs require vanadium. However, recent developments in PBAs and PACs have led to commercialisation of critical mineral free chemistries. The anode, electrolyte and current collectors are completely free of critical minerals. The anode is made up of hard carbon and the electrolyte is usually sodium hexafluoro phosphate salt dissolved in organic carbonates such as propylene carbonate or a mix of ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate. The current collectors are made up of abundantly available aluminium.