It has come to light that in order to give a push to the faster adoption of electric vehicles, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) aims to set up EV-charging stations every 40 to 60 kilometres on the national highways. The same has been communicated to The Print by Giridhar Aramane, Chairman, National Highways Authority of India He further added that the organization plans to cover up to 40,000 km of highways under this plan by 2023.
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Speaking on this, Araname said, Whoever is travelling on national highways in an electric vehicle will not suffer if the vehicle breaks down. We amended the concession agreement for the wayside amenities to include electric vehicle charging facilities also. Besides, there will be a restaurant, toilets, drivers resting rooms, and petrol and diesel dispensing machines etc
These charging facilities will be a part of the upcoming roadside amenities that will be developed by private companies on the greenfield expressways and the older national highways that are being developed further. NHAI has already invited bids from the installation of as many as 100 such roadside amenities that will support EV-charging infrastructure.
We have bid out 100 wayside amenities and got a tremendous response. Each wayside amenity has received at least six-seven bids. Once the bids are awarded, (the work) will take six months to complete. The plan is to bid out 700 wayside amenities that have charging stations by next two years. Eventually, we want to cover the entire national highway network. Araname added.
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As per the available information, the upcoming complexes that will offer a range of amenities to the road users will range from two to four hectares. The four-lane highways will have complexes set up on two-hectare land, the greenfield projects like the upcoming Delhi-Mumbai expressway will have these facilities spread over four-hectare projects. The National Highway Authority of India has created a new wing, National Highways Logistics Management Ltd, for the setting up of the upcoming roadside amenities. It will also take care of the creation and installation of Multi-Modal Logistic Parks and port connectivity roads.
The plan of setting up of electric vehicle-charging infrastructure every 40-60 km is the latest in line with many initiatives that the Government has taken to boost the adoption of electric vehicles. It has already launched the Phase-2 of FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) scheme with a massive Rs 10,000 crore budget. Under this, the government supports the electrification of public as well as shared electric mobility along with even providing buyers of electric vehicles with subsidies. Already, the government has reduced the GST on electric vehicles from 12 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
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