The ministry of heavy industries (MHI) has set a target to set up solar based 321 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along the national highways in West Bengal, out of a total target of 5,833 EV charging stations in the country.

Since the past few years, the ministry has been setting up electric vehicle charging stations throughout India under its FAME (Faster Adoption of Electric Vehicles in India) India Programme, Phase 1 and Phase 2.

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Earlier, the ministry had invited bids for setting up infrastructure of electric charging stations for vehicles in the country under the FAME-II scheme. The cities had been categorized as smart cities, satellite cities, million plus population cities, etc. connected to the metro cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

The Union power ministry had already approved the amendments in electric vehicle charging guidelines and specifications.

So far, 5,293 numbers of electric vehicle charging stations have been established along national highways in the country, which includes 4,729 EV charging stations, set up under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas at an expenditure of Rs 178 crore.

Out of these 5,293 EV charging stations in the country, 208 are located in West Bengal.

In addition, the ministry of heavy industries has set up a target of 5,833 EV charging stations along highways out of a total 7,432 EV charging stations through the three oil marketing companies (OMCs) under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MoP and NG). A capital subsidy of Rs 800 crore has been provided to these oil companies towards establishment of 7,432 EV charging stations.

Maharashtra has the highest number of EV charging stations in the country. Already, Maharashtra has 659 numbers of EV charging stations throughout the state and 750 numbers of new EV charging stations will be set up in the coming years.

The Centre has plans to set up EV charging stations on both sides of the highways. However, presently the Union government has not planned to set up any power station alongside national highways for the aforesaid EV charging stations.

The central government has been promoting sales of EV vehicles with various sops to reduce the pollution level in the country, but the biggest challenges the sector has been facing are the lack of infrastructure of adequate numbers of EV charging stations in every nook and corner of the country like the existing petrol pump networks and the high maintenance cost of the batteries of the EV vehicles.