Free solar calls and SMS: scam or genuine?

A call or text offering "free solar panels", a "PM Surya Ghar approval" that needs a fee, or a "last date" that is tomorrow is not from the scheme. The PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana does not give away panels. You pay the installer for the system, and the government then pays a fixed subsidy of up to ₹78,000 into your own bank account after commissioning, officially "within 30 days" of the claim; about 15 days on average. None of the nine official steps involves paying the government, nobody phones you to "release" the money, and nobody needs your one-time password (OTP). ^[2]

The one genuinely zero-cost offer in the region is Delhi's announced scheme, and it was not open when we checked, so a call taking money to "register" you for it is ahead of the government. This page sets out what is real, what is not, and how to check any caller in a few minutes, including one who says they are calling from Verde Solaire.

What "free solar" actually means

The scheme's name promises free electricity, not free equipment. The subsidy is ₹30,000 per kW for the first 2 kW and ₹18,000 for the third, so ₹78,000 at 3 kW and nothing more above that. A 3 kW system on Verde Solaire's published list costs ₹1,99,000 to ₹2,10,000 before subsidy, so the subsidy is a large discount on a real price, not a gift. The money moves once, from the government to you, and only after the electricity board has inspected the system and installed the net meter. ^[2] The money-flow page walks through who pays whom at every stage.

Delhi is the exception, and only on paper so far. On 1 September 2026 the Delhi Cabinet approved up to 3 kW at zero upfront cost, "subject to technical feasibility" for households that averaged 400 units a month or less in FY 2025-26. ^[9] When we checked on 16 September 2026 the notification had not been published and there was nothing to register for. Anyone offering to "book your slot" for it, for a fee or an advance, is selling something the government has not yet built. The zero-upfront explainer keeps track of what is approved against what is notified.

Not yet official. Cabinet-approved on 1 September 2026 and reported by the press; the notification and operating rules had not been published when we checked on 16 September 2026. The official Delhi portal still shows the July 2025 figures.

Genuine costs, and the fees that are not

Three kinds of money are real. The first is the system price, paid to the installer against a written quote that names the make and model of every component. The second is whatever your electricity board, the distribution company (DISCOM) named on your bill, charges for the net meter: in Delhi there is no application fee for domestic systems up to 10 kW since 16 July 2026, under the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) guidelines, and any meter or line charge should be paid only against the board's own demand. ^[13] For Uttar Pradesh the policy sources we hold do not state a figure, so treat any fee a caller quotes as unverified until the DISCOM's portal shows it. The third is a loan, if you take one: the scheme's loan is collateral-free, from nationalised banks, and a bank processes it, not the person who rang you. ^[3]

Everything else is a red flag:

• A "processing", "registration" or "approval" fee for the subsidy. None of the nine official steps involves paying the government, and the subsidy is paid to you, not collected from you. A real approval shows up on the portal when you log in, and it costs nothing to see. ^[2]
• A request for an OTP. The portal sends a one-time password to your mobile so that you can log in as yourself. Anyone asking you to read it out is trying to act as you, on the portal or on your bank account. An installer never needs it; on a survey visit you type it in yourself.
• A cash advance without a quote. Money before a survey, before a written quote, in cash, or to a personal Unified Payments Interface (UPI) handle or an individual's account, is the pattern Saur Energy's July 2026 report on solar frauds calls the vanishing installer: an advance is taken and the contractor disappears. The report's own advice is to stage payments against delivery and to check that the receiving account name matches the registered company.
• A deadline of days. The scheme runs until 31 March 2027. The short timelines in the process belong to the electricity board, such as Delhi's 10 days for a connection up to 10 kW, and those work in your favour. ^[13]
• A "government officer" asking for your bank details. You enter your bank details and a cancelled cheque on the portal yourself, at step eight, after commissioning. Nobody needs them before the system exists. ^[2]

How to verify any caller

The whole check takes a few minutes and uses only sources you control.

1. Look the vendor up yourself. Under the scheme, the installer must be a vendor registered on the national portal, and you choose the vendor on pmsuryaghar.gov.in. The vendor lists are published per electricity board, and Delhi's solar portal links to each one. ^{[delhi-empanelled-vendors]} Do not rely on a screenshot a caller sends. Registration can also be withdrawn: in August 2026 the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) deactivated 66 vendors over pending applications, so check the live list, not a certificate from last year. ^{[indianpsu-vendors]}
2. Log in to the portal on your own phone. The status of any application in your name is visible at pmsuryaghar.gov.in after you register with your consumer number and mobile number. ^[msg-portal] If a caller says you are approved and the portal does not, the caller is wrong. If there is an application you did not make, a vendor has used your details, and that is worth a complaint.
3. Ask your electricity board, not the caller. Only the DISCOM named on your bill inspects the system and installs the net meter. BSES Rajdhani's rooftop portal is rts.bsesdelhi.com (helpline 19123, extension 3); Tata Power-DDL publishes the net-metering application and manual on tatapower-ddl.com. ^[4] The board guides list the routes for PVVNL, NPCL and PUVVNL as well.
4. Call the company back on a number you found yourself. Search for the company, open its own website and dial the number printed there. Verde Solaire's numbers are on the contact page; if a caller claiming to be us will not let you hang up and call back, they are not us.
5. Insist on paper before money. A genuine quote carries the company's name, its GST identification number (GSTIN), the make and model of the panels and inverter, the price before subsidy, the subsidy and the net figure. Verde Solaire's published GSTIN is GSTIN 09AAGCV4977Q1Z6, and the number on any quote or invoice we send should match it. The advance checklist and the vendor verification guide go into both in detail.

What Verde Solaire will never ask for

Verde Solaire is a registered PM Surya Ghar vendor in both Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, which means the portal, not a phone call, is where our name appears against your application. We offer a free site evaluation and no-obligation proposal, so nothing is paid before you have seen a written quote. We will never ask you for:

• an OTP, a portal password, a bank password, a card number or a UPI PIN;
• a fee to "approve", "register", "process" or "release" the subsidy, because there is none;
• cash, or a payment to an individual's account, because every payment goes to the company account named on the quote;
• an advance before a survey and a written quote;
• your bank details before commissioning, because you enter them on the portal yourself.

What we do instead is register the application with you on the survey visit, install, file the net-meter application with your electricity board, and follow the subsidy through to your account. Mr. L. R. Singh, a Noida customer, wrote that he "was also able to get solar subsidy in record time because of the follow up of the team of Verde Solaire". ^{[vs-testimonials-1]} That follow-up is the service; the subsidy itself is the government's, and it was always going to be paid to you.

If you have already paid someone

Stop any further payment and keep the call log, the SMS and the payment receipt. Log in to the portal to see whether an application exists in your name and which vendor it names. If money has left your account, tell your bank the same day and report it on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, which the Ministry of Home Affairs runs for this kind of fraud. Then send us the details through the form below; an engineer will tell you, without charge, whether what you were promised exists in the scheme at all.

Sources and dates

The nine official steps and the payout timeline are from the Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder of 13 March 2025; Delhi's Cabinet decision from ANI's report of 1 September 2026; the no-fee rule and the 10-day connection from the DERC guidelines of 16 July 2026; the loan terms from the ministry's Rajya Sabha reply of 28 July 2026. Company facts are from Verde Solaire's own published pages, fetched 18 September 2026. Our September 2026 sweep of public discussion turned up no Delhi or Noida homeowner describing such a call, though it could not read Reddit or Quora, and the warnings we cite come from trade press. If you have had one, the form below is a good place to tell us. ^{[study-2026-09]}

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