By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: India’s effort to expand public electric vehicles charging infrastructure gave a quick result as the country witnessed a 2.5 times growth in charging stations in nine mega cities in the last four months. It had installed 678 public EV charging stations between October 2021 to January 2022 in Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai.
“The Government has made 360-degree efforts to enhance public charging infrastructure by involving private and public agencies (BEE, EESL, PGCIL, NTPC, etc.). Many private organisations have also come forward to install EV charging stations to develop a convenient charging network grid to gain consumers’ confidence,” said the power ministry in a statement.
To boost the electric vehicle infrastructure in the country, the power ministry revised its guidelines in January. It includes providing an affordable tariff chargeable by public EV charging station operators, enable owners of electric vehicles to charge EVs at their residences using their existing electricity connections. A revenue sharing model has been suggested for land use to make a public charging station financially viable from an operational perspective and technical requirements for public charging stations have been elaborated.
The Oil Marketing Companies have announced the setting up of 22,000 EV charging stations in prominent cities and on national highways across the country. Out of 22,000 EV charging stations, 10,000 will be installed by IOCL, 7,000 will be installed by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL), and the rest of 5,000 will be installed by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL). IOCL has already installed 439 EV charging stations and plans to install another 2,000 EV charging stations over the next year. BPCL has installed 52 charging stations, while HPCL has installed 382 charging stations.
