EVIT Partners With BSNL To Push For EV Infrastructure In India

New Delhi-based electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure startup EVI Technologies (EVIT), on Monday (January 6), announced that it has signed an MoU for a period of ten years with telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) to install battery swapping and EV charging stations in five thousand locations across India.

Through this partnership, BSNL will be providing the necessary space and power connections for installing the battery swapping infrastructure. EVIT, on the other hand, will be taking care of the entire operation and maintenance of the battery swapping and EV charging infrastructure. The project aims at solving the challenges faced by people who own EVs. The duo will be installing over 100 battery swapping and public chargers at each location.

The launch of the first charging station is planned in February 2020 in Maharastra and Haryana.

Rupesh Kumar,  EVIT CEO, said in a press statement that building EV charging infrastructure across India is a crucial step under the government’s national emobility programme. Kumar believes that the country is moving towards 100% electric vehicle nation. However, most customers decide to opt-out simply because of limited infrastructure for EVs in the country. “Our to-be-developed infrastructure at BSNL will accelerate the adoption of EVs across India,” Kumar added.

EVIT was founded by Kumar, along with Aditya Raj and Vikrant K Aggarwal in 2017. The Electropreneur Park incubated company has installed over 200 charging points across 16 cities in India. The startup is funded and supported by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeiTY). Recently, the company has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Napino Auto & Electronics, one of the largest automotive electronics component manufacturers in India. It claims to have crossed 10 Mn revenue marks by December 2020.

This decision of setting up of EV swapping battery and charging stations infrastructure by EVIT and BSNL comes at a time when the Indian government had recently approved the setting up of 2,636 EV charging stations around the country under the second phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India (FAME II) scheme. Accordingly, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh will get 228, 205 and 207 charging stations, respectively.

The minister of heavy industries and public enterprises, Prakash Javadekar, said that the government will install at least one EV charging spot in every 4 km radius in the cities. Under FAME II scheme, the government will be setting up 317 EV charging stations in Maharastra, followed by Andra Pradesh (266) and Tamil Nadu (256).