Indian Oil Marketing Companies have come forward to promote electric mobility and assured the Government to set up at least 22,000 Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations in prominent cities and on national highways across the country.

Out of the 22000 EV charging stations, 10,000 would be installed by Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) alone, another 7000 by Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and 5000 by Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), said a senior officer of the Power Ministry here on Saturday.

The IOCL has already installed 439 EV charging stations and plans to install another 2,000 EV charging stations over the next year. Similarly, the BPCL has installed 52 charging stations, while HPCL has installed 382 charging stations, the Power Ministry said.

In addition to this, the Department of Heavy Industry has recently sanctioned 1576 Public Charging Stations for 25 Highways and Expressways which would be located within every 25 km of range on both sides of these expressways, the Ministry said.

The Ministry of Power recently issued the revised consolidated Guidelines and Standards for EV charging infrastructure on January 14, 2022. 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.

Last month the government eased norms for installing EV charging stations and instructed state governments to promote setting up of EV charging infrastructure. “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 a convenient charging network grid to gain consumers’ confidence,” the Power Ministry claimed.

The Ministry of Power has planned one charging station in an area of 3×3 km grid in all urban cities. “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,” he said.

As a result of aggressive efforts of the Ministry, additional 678 public EV charging stations have been installed from October 2021 to January 2022 in nine megacities with a population of over four million, the officer said.