Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Expand 2.5 Times in 9 Mega Cities

Electric vehicle (EV) charging stations have expanded by two-and-a-half times across nine mega cities, including Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, in the last four months, the power ministry said on Saturday.

Efforts by the government resulted in 2.5 times increase in charging stations in Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai in the last four months, a power ministry statement stated. According to the statement, additional 678 public EV charging stations were installed between October 2021 and January 2022 in these nine cities.

About 940 of India's 1,640 public EV chargers are located in these cities. The government has increased its focus initially on the nine mega cities with population of over 4 million. The Ministry of Power recently issued the revised consolidated Guidelines and Standards for EV charging infrastructure on January 14, 2022. The Government of India has undertaken multiple initiatives to promote the manufacturing and adoption of electric vehicles in the country. With the considerable expansion in the public EV charging infrastructure, the electric vehicles have started penetrating the Indian market, it stated. 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 convenient charging network grid to gain consumers' confidence. After the saturation of EV infrastructure in these mega cities, the government has plans to expand the coverage to other cities in a phased manner.

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 (Indian Oil), 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).

The 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. The Department of Heavy Industry has recently sanctioned 1,576 public charging stations for 25 highways & expressways which shall be located within every 25 km of range on both sides of these highways.

(PTI)