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The government has undertaken several initiatives to promote the manufacturing and adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in the country., a key component of which is the public EV charging stations.
Sustained efforts by the public and private sector have helped charging stations across the country to grow to 1,640. The government has made 360-degree efforts to enhance public charging infrastructure by involving private and public agencies (BEE, EESL, PGCIL, NTPC). Many private organisations have also come forward to install EV charging stations to develop a convenient charging network grid to gain consumers’ confidence, the Power Ministry said in a statement.
Charging stations
“Ministry of Power (MoP) has planned that charging stations should be in an area of 3×3 km grid. Currently, India has a total of 1640 operational public EV chargers. Out of which, 9 cities (Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai) account for approximately 940 stations,” it added. The ministry has increased its focus initially on these 9 megacities (with a population of over 4 million). The aggressive efforts undertaken by the government through various implementing agencies have resulted in rapid growth in the deployment of public EV charging infrastructure. There has been an additional installation of 678 public EV charging stations between October 2021 to January 2022 in these 9 cities, which is about 2.5 times the earlier numbers, during the same period, about 1.8 lacs new electric vehicles were sold. This has exhibited greater confidence among the consumers to shift towards electric mobility.
After the saturation of EV infrastructure in megacities, the government has plans to expand the coverage to other cities in a phased manner. To further promote EVs, MoP, on January 14, issued the revised consolidated Guidelines and Standards for EV charging infrastructure. The government 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.
Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) Participation
Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) 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 (BPCL), and the rest of 5,000 will be installed by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (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. 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 expressways & highways.
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