Minister encourages launch of new models

To give a further push to clean mobility in Road Transport Sector, the Department of Heavy Industries has sanctioned 2,636 charging stations in 62 cities across 24 States/UTs under FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India) scheme phase II.

As many as 317 EV charging stations have been allotted in Maharashtra, 266 in Andhra Pradesh, 256 in Tamil Nadu, 228 in Gujarat, 205 in Rajasthan, 207 in Uttar Pradesh, 172 in Karnataka, 159 in Madhya Pradesh, 141 in West Bengal, 138 in Telangana, 131 in Kerala, 72 in Delhi, 70 in Chandigarh, 50 in Haryana, 40 in Meghalaya, 37 in Bihar, 29 in Sikkim, 25 each in Jammu & Kashmir and Chhattisgarh, 20 in Assam, 18 in Odisha and 10 each in Uttarakhand, Puducherry and Himachal Pradesh.

The sanction letters to the selected entities will be issued in phases after ensuring the availability of land for charging stations, signing of necessary agreements/MoU with concerned partner organizations like city municipal corporation, Discoms and oil companies, said the department in a release on 3 Jan 2020.

Subsequently, each selected public entities is required to initiate the procurement process in a time bound manner for deployment of sanctioned charging stations.

Minister of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises, Prakash Javadekar said that in future at least one charging station will be available in most of the selected cities in a grid of 4-km X 4-km.

He said it will boost the confidence of users of Electric Vehicles and encourage the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to launch the new electric vehicle models. Lack of charging infrastructure has restricted launch of such vehicles.

The department had invited Expression of Interest (EoI) from million-plus cities, smart cities, State, Union Territory capitals and cities from special category states for submission of proposal for availing incentives under FAME India Scheme Phase II for deployment of EV charging infrastructure within Cities.

About 106 proposals from Public and Private Entities for the deployment of about 7,000 EV charging stations were received. After evaluation of these proposals as per EoI, on the advice of Project Implementation and Sanctioning Committee (PISC), the Government sanctioned 2,636 charging stations to 62 cities submitted by 19 public entities for 24 states.

Out of these 2,636 charging stations, 1,633 Charging Stations will be Fast Charging Stations and 1,003 will be slow charging stations. With this, about 14,000 Charging Stations will be installed across the selected cities, said the department. Fiinews.com