Instructions for Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Infrastructure
Recently, NITI Aayog has released a handbook for guiding Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in India.
It aims to develop EV-charging infrastructure and facilitate rapid transition to electric mobility in the country.
The Handbook for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Implementation assists through a systematic approach on planning, permitting and executing EV charging infrastructure.
It is estimated that India will need at least 4 lakh charging stations by the year 2026 against the current 2,000 functional charging stations (March 2021) to meet the following access requirements:
- According to the central government, a phase-wise installation of appropriate network of charging infrastructure throughout the country has been envisioned in the guidelines to ensure that at least one charging station will be available in a grid of 3 km x 3 km in the cities and one such station to be set up at every 25 km on both sides of the highways.
- Electric Vehicles Initiative (EVI) EV30@30 target i.e. a target has been set to achieve sales of at least 30% of new electric vehicles by the year 2030. This requires an accessible and robust charging infrastructure.
Initiatives taken to develop EV charging infrastructure
- Tax levied on chargers and charging stations has been reduced from 18% to 5%.
- Incentive (Rs 1000 crore) has been released for setting up EV charging infrastructure under the Rapid Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric (and Hybrid) Vehicles (FAME-II/FAME-II) scheme.
Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles
Guidelines and standards were issued by the Ministry of Power specifying the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders at the Central and State level. These were issued to accelerate the development of public EV charging infrastructure across the country.
Major challenges in electric vehicle (EV) adoption
- Lack of charging infrastructure
- Electric vehicle (EV) becoming too expensive
- Uncertain and underdeveloped policy landscape for electric vehicles
- Choice in electric vehicle i.e. lack of suitable variants
- Charging time
Source – PIB
