In a decision to give a boost to electric vehicles in country, the Power Minister R K Singh has approved amendments in electric vehicle charging guidelines and specifications. These revised guidelines and specifications for charging infrastructure shall supersede the earlier guidelines and standards issued by the Ministry of Power December 2018.
R K Singh said that revised guidelines are more consumer friendly as they incorporate a number of suggestions received from various stakeholders. “We have tried to address the concerns of EV owners in new guidelines,” he said and expressed hope that revised guidelines will encourage faster adoption of EVs in India.
In order to address the range of issues of the electric vehicle owners, a phase-wise installation of an appropriate network of charging infrastructure throughout the country has been envisaged in the guidelines ensuring that at least one charging station should be available in a grid of 3 Km X 3 Km in the cities and one charging station at every 25 km on both sides of highways and roads. It has been envisaged that in the first phase (i.e. 1-3 years) all mega cities with population of four million plus as per census 2011, all existing expressways connected to these mega cities and important highways connected with each of these mega cities may be taken up for coverage, while in the second phase (3-5 years) big cities like state capitals, UT headquarters may be covered for distributed and demonstrative effect. Further, important highways connected with each of these mega cities may also be taken up for coverage.