This might sound like music to the ears of electric car makers. The government wants to have one electric vehicle charging station every 3km in major cities, where the population is more than a million and every 50kms on the highways, according to a report quoting a government official.
If the plan to set up charging points across India’s cities and National Highways gets implemented, one can witness a surge in the sale of electric vehicles.
As part of a medium-term plan covering the next 3 to 5 years, the objective is to have 15,000 fast-charging stations and double that number of slow-charging ones. The same ratio will be followed in laying out the charging points within the cities. Some of the smart cities may have a larger proportion of the charging stations in view of the go-green initiatives.
The government will step in to coordinate with the local authorities like municipalities to locate land and then offer fiscal incentives to those coming forward to set up the electric charging stations for vehicles. The power distribution companies in the public and private sector will have to step in with their support as well in ensuring that the charging stations receive the requisite amount of power.
Some of the leading public-sector firms in the energy sector, like NTPC, Indian Oil Corporation and Power Grid Corporation may play a key role in the setting up of these charging stations. Some of them, like NTPC and Power Grid Corporation have already set up such facilities; NTPC in Maharashtra and Power Grid in Telangana. These companies will also be suitably incentivized to setup the charging stations. Some, such as IOC, have the advantage of having their petrol pumps all over and finding space for an electric charging station within these properties may not pose major difficulties.
Apart from the public-sector firms, some of the other stakeholders interested in setting up the charging stations include automobile companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, and cab operators such as Ola and Uber have also expressed interest. Some of the cities where there are Metro rail services already in operation the stations may be used to setup the facilities.