The government has issued revised consolidated guidelines and standards for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the country.

The Ministry of Power has undertaken multiple initiatives to promote the manufacturing and adoption of EVs in the country.

With the considerable expansion in the charging infrastructure, electric vehicles have started penetrating the Indian market, an official release today said.

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 networks to gain consumers’ confidence. The ministry 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 about 940 stations.

The government has increased its focus initially on these 9 mega cities (with a population of over 4 million). 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. 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.

The availability of adequate charging infrastructure had been the key impediment 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.