Centre sanctions 2,636 charging stations in 62 cities across 24 States, UTs

In a bid to give a push to clean mobility, the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises on Friday approved the sanction of 2,636 charging stations in 62 cities across 24 States and Union Territories across the country.

The Ministry sanctioned the charging stations in 62 cities submitted by 19 public entities under the phase II of FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India) scheme.

"By installing all these charging stations, it is expected that at least one charging station will be available in most of the selected cities in a grid of 4 km x 4 km, which will boost the confidence of users of electric vehicles in terms of range anxiety," Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, Prakash Javadekar said in a statement.

He said that it will also encourage the Original equipment manufacturer (OEMs) to launch the new electric vehicle models which they were hesitant because of lack of charging infrastructure.

"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 numbers of chargers will be installed across the selected cities," the statement said.

According to the statement, 317 electric vehicles charging stations have been allotted for Maharashtra, 266 for Andhra Pradesh, 256 Tamil Nadu, 228 Gujarat, 205 Rajasthan, 207 Uttar Pradesh, 172 Karnataka, 159 Madhya Pradesh, 141 West Bengal, 138 Telangana, 131 Kerala, 72 Delhi, 70 Chandigarh, 50 Haryana, 40 Meghalaya, 37 Bihar, 29 Sikkim.

Twenty-five electric vehicles charging stations have also been allotted for each Jammu and Srinagar and Chandigarh while 20 stations will come up in Assam, 18 in Odisha and 10 each in Uttarakhand, Puducherry and Himachal Pradesh.

The statement said that the sanction letters will be issued to the selected entities in phases after ensuring the availability of land for charging stations and signing of necessary agreements with concerned partner orgsations.

( With inputs from ANI )