Govt. of India to Expand Public EV Charging Infrastructure
The aggressive efforts undertaken by the government through various implementing agencies have resulted in rapid growth in the deployment of public EV charging infrastructure.
Government of India has recently revised consolidated Guidelines and Standards for India’s EV charging infrastructure.
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, electric vehicles have started penetrating the Indian market.
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 organizations have also come forward to install EV charging stations to develop a convenient charging network grid to gain consumers’ confidence. Ministry of Power (MoP) has planned that charging stations should be in an area of a 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.
The Government 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 the additional installation of 678 public EV charging stations between October 2021 to January 2022 in these 9 cities, which is about 2.5 times of the earlier numbers, during the same period, about 1.8 lacs new electric vehicles.
The availability of adequate charging infrastructure had been the key impediments to accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles in India. In this regard, the Ministry of Power issued “Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles—Guidelines and Standards,” describing the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders at the Central and State level for expeditious deployment of public EV charging infrastructure across the country.
In this direction, 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.
