PATNA, Aug. 13 -- Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday said that the state government would support in setting up solar power plants on the premises of domestic power consumers, in addition to giving 125 units of free power a month from the energy bill of July. Speaking at a public interaction with power consumers through videoconference, Kumar said that the Bihar government will fully bear the cost of installing solar power plants for extremely poor families under the ongoing Kutir Jyoti scheme. For the remaining consumers, the state government will provide financial assistance to set up solar power plants. Over the next three years, Bihar is expected to generate up to 10,000 MW of solar energy. Earlier, power consumers thanked the chief minister for offering 125 units of free power a month to domestic power consumers. Komal Kumari from Supaul, Leela Kumari from Biharsharif in Nalanda district, Gudiya Khatoon from Muzaffarpur and Noor Jahan Khatoon from Gaya Ji, who were among those to air their views, said the money saved on their energy bills would be spent on the education and health of their children, besides utilising them on essential household expenses. Gudiya Khatoon and Noor Jahan claimed their energy bills, along with many others in her village, had come down to zero last month, while Komal claimed the money saved on electricity would be deposited in her daughter's bank account. The CM lauded the energy department's turn around from a power-starved state to now giving 125 units of free electricity to its 1.86 crore domestic consumers. He said the state's power supply had gone up from 700 MW in 2005 to 8,752 MW. Similarly, the annual per capita power consumption, which was 75 units in the year 2005, had now increased five times to 363 units at present. The state's aggregate transmission and commercial (AT&C) loss had also significantly declined from 59.24% in 2005 to 15.50% in 2024-25, as per the official data. At present, the average power supply has increased to 22 to 24 hours in urban areas and in rural areas, the supply has increased considerably to 18 to 20 hours a day. The government has already achieved the target of electrifying every household in the state in October 2018 under the "Har Ghar Bijli" scheme. The number of consumers has increased to 2.12 crore from 17.3 lakh in 2005. Of this, around 75 lakh smart prepaid meters, of which 60 lakh are domestic consumers, have been installed across the state so far. Earlier, energy minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said that in order to promote solar energy, the state government had decided to install 1.1 KW capacity rooftop solar panels. The government would give a cent per cent subsidy to 58.89 lakh Kutir Jyoti power consumers (BPL) for installing rooftop solar plants. No fixed charge and other charges would be levied on those consuming up to 125 units of electricity, he added....