State-level determinants of off-grid solar irrigation pump adoption in India (28 states, 2019–2024)

Research hypothesis: This dataset was compiled to test whether state-level variation in off-grid solar irrigation pump adoption in India is better explained by resource availability (solar potential) or by regime-level institutional and infrastructural conditions (subsidy support, grid infrastructure, utility performance), consistent with a Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework distinguishing niche-level and regime-level explanations for technology diffusion. The working hypothesis was that institutional and policy factors would show stronger associations with adoption than solar resource endowment alone, given that off-grid solar irrigation adoption in India remains low and geographically uneven despite broadly comparable solar potential across most states. What the data contains: The dataset covers 28 Indian states (Union Territories excluded due to data limitations). For each state, it records: 1) Adoption intensity (dependent variable): Cumulative number of off-grid solar irrigation pumps installed under successive national schemes, expressed per 1,000 cultivators, using cultivator counts from the latest Agricultural Census (2015-16) as the denominator. 2) Solar potential (MW): State-level solar resource capacity, used to test the niche-level resource-availability explanation for adoption. PM-KUSUM subsidy per cultivator. Cumulative subsidy disbursed under India's PM-KUSUM scheme between 2019 and 2024, summed across the period and divided by cultivator count. 3) Agricultural connected load per cultivator: Aggregate agricultural electricity load connected to the grid, per cultivator. 4) Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses (%): A standard indicator of electricity distribution utility (DISCOM) operational performance. Data were compiled from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), the Central Electricity Authority, Power Finance Corporation, and the Agricultural Census of India