Having sanctioned 2877 EV charging stations within cities, the Department of Heavy Industries has now sought proposals to build and operate public charging infrastructure on major highways and expressways in the nation.
As per the DHI expression of interest, proposals are invited from government organizations, public-sector undertakings (PSUs), state-owned DISCOMs, oil PSUs, and similar other public and private entities.
A minimum of 174 charging stations are to be installed for the total 1775 km stretch of the identified expressways, and another 1370 for the entire 13,370 km stretch of highways, to ensure the installation of a minimum of one charging station at every 25 km on both sides of the highway/road and minimum one long-range/heavy-duty charging station at every 100 km on both sides of the highway/road.
The identified expressways are Mumbai-Pune, Ahmedabad-Vadodara, Delhi-Agra Yamuna, Bengaluru-Mysore, Bengaluru-Chennai, Surat-Mumbai, Agra-Lucknow, Eastern Peripheral and Hyderabad-ORR Expressways.
Highways include Delhi-Srinagar, Delhi-Kolkata, Agra-Nagpur, Meerut-Gangotri Dham, Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Panaji, Mumbai-Nagpur, Mumbai-Bengaluru and Kolkata-Bhubaneswar.
The second phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME II) program aims to electrify public and shared transportation. It offers purchase incentives for electric and hybrid vehicles and also supports charging infrastructure.
The Rs10,000 crore, three-year FAME II program, which will run until April 2022, followed the original, Rs895 crore FAME India Scheme, which was launched in April 2015.
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So there will be EV Charging Stations on India’s “selected” Highways…. this is a good start, assuming Battery Powered Vehicles is the “future” of Green Vehicles.
However, It is not clear how long it will take to “Charge” these Electric Vehicles… minutes or hours…. if it is the latter, I assume Resting/Sleeping/Eating and clean/hygenic toilet facilities will also be provided too… or are the passengers expected to stay in their vehicles as it takes the next few hours to charge their vehicles….????