Govt To Set Up 2,636 EV Charging Stations Under FAME II

In a bid to push electric vehicle (EV) adoption in the country, the Indian government has approved the setting up of 2,636 EV charging stations around the country. These charging stations, spread across 62 cities in 24 states and union territories, are going to be established under the second phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India (FAME or FAME-II) scheme.

Prakash Javadekar, minister of heavy industries and public enterprises, said that the installation of these charging stations will ensure that at least one EV charging spot is available within a 4 Kms radius in these cities. “The availability of EV charging stations will encourage EV manufacturers to launch new EV models which they were hesitant because of the lack of charging infrastructure,” Javadekar was quoted as saying by ET.

Under this programme, the government will set up 317 EV charging stations in Maharashtra, which is the most in any state. While Andhra Pradesh will get 266 EV stations, people in Tamil Nadu will be able to charge their EVs from 256 such stations. Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh will get 228, 205, and 207 EV charging stations respectively.

Also, union territories of Delhi and Chandigarh are expected to get 72 and 70 charging stations respectively. Uttarakhand, Puducherry, and Himachal Pradesh will also get 10 EV charging spots under the FAME II programme. The newly created union territory of Jammu and Kashmir will also receive 25 such charging points.

In these total 2,636 charging stations, a total of 14K chargers will be installed. Notably, around 1,633, out of the total 2,636 EV stations, are going to be fast charging.

For these charging stations, the department of heavy industries has invited expressions of interest from stakeholders to participate and avail incentives provided by the government under the FAME II programme for deployment of EV charging infrastructure.

The government is also working on locating land for these charging stations, approvals from various departments, and partnership with city municipal corporations, oil companies. The licenses will be issued post this process.

Till now, the department has received 106 proposals from various public and private companies for setting up of around 7K EV charging stations. However, after the evaluation of these proposals, the government decided to move ahead with only 2,636 charging stations. The proposals that had received approval from the government were from 19 public entities.

Besides this central government project, the Delhi government also started its plan to set up 75 charging stations across the city. The project is running in Delhi by state-run Energy Efficiency Service Ltd (EESL), in collaboration with South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).

Recently, the Andhra Pradesh government, in December 2019, announced that it is going would delicense electric vehicle charging stations across the state to give a boost to the electric mobility infrastructure in the state.