Work on installing 100 EV charging stations in Delhi nearing end: Officials

The work on installing 100 public charging stations for electric vehicles in Delhi is nearing completion and all of them are likely to become operational by July, officials said on Monday.

The civil infrastructure has been completed for more than 95 of the 100 charging stations. The setting up of charges and other electrical work like power connection has started now, they said.

"The public charging stations, having a total of 500 charging points for the electric vehicles, will start functioning from July and all of them will become operational by the end of the month," said a senior Delhi government official.

Land was handed over after agreement to four concessionaires selected through open bidding for setting up the charging stations.

The vehicle owners using the public charging points will have to pay at the rate of Rs 2 per unit. It will be the lowest EV charging fee in the country, officials claimed.

Most of the public charging stations are being set up at metro stations to facilitate people who use both private vehicles and metro trains for daily commute, they said.

The Delhi Electric Vehicle policy envisages setting up a charging station per three Km for easily accessible charging facility for electric vehicles. According to realtime data of the Delhi government, currently there are 597 charging stations, 825 charging points and 165 battery swapping facilities.

Under the public-private partnership model, the Delhi government has provided land, cabling and transmission infrastructure while the equipment and manpower have been provided by the concessionaires, officials said.

The Delhi government is pushing adoption of electric vehicle in the national capital in a big way to reduce pollution levels in the city. Under its EV policy, the government has targeted 25 percent electric vehicles in total vehicle registrations in Delhi by 2024.

Since the launch of the EV policy in August 2020, the electric vehicles comprise more than 12 percent of total vehicle sales in Delhi, officials added.