Chandigarh: All EV charging stations to become functional soon

Chandigarh, March 8

After more than one and a half years, charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) will finally see the light of day. “All 53 charging stations will be made operational by the end of this month,” assured UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit during a press conference here.

The UT Administration notified the Electric Vehicle (EV) Policy on September 20, 2022, but the city’s infrastructure is still not ready for the electric vehicles. As many as 23 charging stations were installed at nine locations across the city in November 2022. These stations have a total of 92 charging guns and an equal number of vehicles can be charged simultaneously.

An official of the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST), the nodal agency for the implementation of the EV Policy in UT, said the work on the installation of 44 more charging stations under the “Chandigarh developer mode” at various locations was underway and 30 such stations had been installed at various places, including the multilevel parking in Sector 17, the parking lot at the Elante mall, parking area of the Mani Majra car bazaar, the Madhya Marg in Sector 26 and the parking lot of the Sector 44-D market. The official said a memorandum of understating (MoU) would be signed with the Municipal Corporation (MC) within a few days and after that a copy of the agreement would be sent to the Electricity Department for supplying power to the charging stations.

Chandigarh has reported the highest adoption of electric vehicles in the country in September last year. Of the total sales of new vehicles in the city in the month, 14.95% were EVs.

However, due to the impasse between the MC and the UT Administration over the installation of charging stations in parking lots, these charging stations are yet to be made operational.

During a meeting of the General House, the MC had refused to allow installation of EV charging stations in the parking lots under it. However, it agreed to the proposal of the Administration later. — TNS

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