PM E-DRIVE Charging Station Scheme: 8,147 Chargers Approved For Rs 851 Crore

PM E-DRIVE Has Approved 8,147 Public Chargers. Where Does That Leave CPOs?

The PM E-DRIVE charging station scheme now has a firm number behind it. A PIB backgrounder from the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI), dated 1 October 2026, says Rs 851 crore has been approved for 8,147 public EV chargers. The approvals cover three oil marketing companies and ten states, as of 28 September. The scheme set aside Rs 2,000 crore for public charging, so about 43% of that money is committed and Rs 1,149 crore is still open.

This article is for charge point operators (CPOs) who bid on state tenders, for fuel retailers whose forecourts are in the oil companies’ share, and for site hosts deciding whether to wait for a subsidised operator. Our guide to EV charging station subsidies in India explains how to claim the subsidy. This article tracks how fast the money is moving, how much is left, and how much has turned into hardware on the ground.

PM E-DRIVE Charging Station Scheme: Three Approval Snapshots

One figure on its own says little about progress. MHI has published three in five months, and together they show the pace of approvals:

The trend is clear. In the 50 days from 12 May to 1 July, MHI approved 1,688 more chargers and about Rs 185 crore. In the 89 days from 1 July to 28 September, it approved 1,585 more chargers and about Rs 162 crore. Over a longer period it approved fewer chargers. Only one new state joined. The value per approved charger has stayed between Rs 10.3 and 10.5 lakh. Because the average has not changed, the slowdown comes from fewer proposals reaching approval, not from smaller ones.

Key Findings From The 1 October Backgrounder

• Total outlay: Rs 11,900 crore, up from Rs 10,900 crore after the 10 August 2026 gazette notification. Implementation runs until 31 March 2028.
• Public charging: Rs 2,000 crore earmarked for nationwide EV public charging stations (EVPCS). The increase in total outlay did not change this figure.
• Rs 851 crore approved for 8,147 chargers, split between 3 oil marketing companies and 10 states, as of 28 September 2026.
• E-buses: Rs 4,391 crore for 14,028 e-buses. 14,000 had been allocated by August 2026, and 13,800 of them went to Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Surat.
• EV sales: 26.59 lakh EVs sold under the scheme by June 2026, against a target of about 28.30 lakh. EV penetration rose from 0.08% in FY2015-16 to 8.26% in FY2025-26.
• Rs 780 crore goes to upgrading vehicle testing agencies. Buyer incentives are paid at the point of sale through Aadhaar-authenticated e-vouchers, and MHI reimburses the OEM.

Rs 1,149 Crore Left: Will The Money Be Committed Before The Deadline?

From 28 September 2026 to 31 March 2028 is about 18 months. To commit the remaining Rs 1,149 crore of the PM E-DRIVE charging station scheme in that time, MHI needs to approve about Rs 64 crore a month. Between May and July it approved about Rs 113 crore a month. Between July and September it approved about Rs 55 crore a month. At the faster rate the earmark is committed with time to spare. At the slower rate, roughly Rs 150 crore is still uncommitted when the scheme ends.

The actual window is probably shorter. Approval is only the first step: a nodal agency then has to tender the sites, choose a CPO, hand over land and wait for the build. Odisha’s tender, for example, gives the CPO 180 days from site handover to finish. Suppose approvals need to close about a year before March 2028 to leave time for construction. Then the required pace roughly doubles, to about Rs 96 crore a month. That is our estimate, not an MHI figure. It still suggests that state proposals submitted in the next two or three quarters have the best chance of being funded.

FAME-II gives a useful comparison. It allocated Rs 912.50 crore for public charging and, according to a Parliament reply of 12 August 2026, ended with 9,583 stations installed. That works out to about Rs 9.5 lakh per station, close to PM E-DRIVE’s average today. We covered the wider infrastructure count in our report on India’s 52,718 public charging stations.

Approved Is Not Installed: Where The 8,147 Chargers Stand

An approved charger is a grant allocation, not hardware on the ground. On 4 August 2026, Business Standard reported Heavy Industries Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s written Lok Sabha reply: 6,562 chargers had been sanctioned and none had been installed yet. ANI’s report of the same reply gives the figures as of 22 July. Reports of the same reply split the total into 5,871 chargers in nine states and 691 for the three oil companies. Karnataka had the most, with 1,571 chargers worth Rs 153.10 crore. Delhi had 1,146 and Rajasthan 805. The October backgrounder does not give an updated installation count.

The best public measure of progress is the live-tenders page on BHEL’s EVCS portal. BHEL is the scheme’s project implementation agency. As of 15 October, the page lists eight approved proposals with tender documents, covering 3,348 chargers at 1,242 stations. That is about 41% of the approved total.

That leaves about 4,800 approved chargers, roughly 59%, with no tender document on BHEL’s page. Some may be tendered through state portals. The oil companies’ share is likely to be built at their own retail outlets and procured outside BHEL’s tender list. Karnataka and Delhi, the two largest state approvals in July, do not appear on BHEL’s list at all. So most of the approved chargers are still waiting for a tender or a work order.

What The PM E-DRIVE Charging Numbers Mean For Charge Point Operators

CPOs bidding on state tenders

Private operators cannot apply to the PM E-DRIVE charging station scheme directly; proposals reach MHI only through ministries and state nodal agencies. The money reaches them only when they win a nodal-agency tender, so the 4,800 chargers not yet tendered are the near-term opportunity. The tenders differ more than the subsidy rules suggest. Telangana’s highest bidder pays TGREDCO above a reserve floor. Odisha scores bids 60% on technical merit and 40% on price, and caps the tariff at the DISCOM rate plus Rs 1/kWh plus the CPO’s service charge. See how YoCharge supports charge point operators that run networks across several states.

Fuel retailers and forecourt partners

The three oil marketing companies had 691 approved chargers in July. Under the scheme guidelines, PSU retail outlets get 80% support on upstream infrastructure and 70% on charging equipment. Whoever operates those chargers, whether the oil company, a dealer or a CPO partner, will need the same uptime, billing and reporting as any other CPO. Our page on EV charging for fuel retailers explains what changes when charging runs alongside fuel sales.

Software requirements are now part of the contract

Each new tender sets out more software obligations. Odisha’s RFP requires chargers on the latest OCPP. It requires a cloud management system on the latest OCPI, open interfaces to roaming platforms, dashboard access for the regulator and integration with the PM E-DRIVE portal. It also treats any CMS outage caused by the CPO as SLA downtime. Over a 10-year concession, the regulator checks the operator’s data and calculates fees from it. That makes the choice of YoCharge’s charging management platform or another CMS part of the bid itself. The OCPI roaming integration requirement is the one most often underestimated.

Model a project on the money committed, not the headline target

For a charging station business plan, use committed funding: about Rs 10 lakh of support per approved charger, at a pace well behind the 72,300 headline. Assume a delay of several months between MHI approval and a signed concession, and a 180-day build after that.

The Rest Of The Backgrounder: Vehicles And E-Buses

Charging is about 17% of the Rs 11,900 crore outlay. Most of the rest goes to vehicles. Electric two-wheelers get Rs 2,500 per kWh, capped at Rs 5,000 per vehicle priced up to Rs 1.5 lakh, from a Rs 2,767 crore allocation. The L5 three-wheeler segment met its target and closed on 26 December 2025. Support for e-rickshaws and e-carts continues until March 2028. The 14,028 e-buses are concentrated in seven cities and will need depot charging. That makes them a separate, fleet-led opportunity for operators who can manage scheduled, high-power charging.

Source: PM E-DRIVE Scheme: A Step Towards a Sustainable Future — PIB Research / Ministry of Heavy Industries, 1 October 2026 (PRID 2317890) | Parliament reply on PM E-DRIVE — MHI, 28 July 2026 (PRID 2290696) | EVCS live tenders — BHEL, accessed 15 October 2026.