As per recent NEWS, as of February 2022, India has a total of 1,640 operational public EV charging Stations. Out of which, 9 cities – Surat, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai – account for approximately 940 stations.
The government has undertaken multiple initiatives to promote the manufacturing and adoption of electric vehicles in India. Recently in January 2022, the Union Power Ministry issued consolidated guidelines for EV charging infrastructure across India. As per this guidelines, there should be a charging each in an area of 3×3 km grid. While the focus initially has been on the nine mega cities (with population of over 4 million), the government plans to add Important National Highways, State Capitals, UT headquarters to EV Charging network.
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.
The aggressive efforts undertaken by the government through various implementing agencies have resulted in rapid growth in deployment of public EV charging infrastructure. There has been 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. This has exhibited greater confidence among the consumers to shift towards electric mobility.
The availability of adequate charging infrastructure had been the key impediments for 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.
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.
The Department of Heavy Industry has recently sanctioned 1576 numbers of Public Charging Stations for 25 Highways & Expressways which shall be located within every 25 km of range on both sides of these expressways & highways.
