Every fourth EV sold in India is from UP, will ramp up charging infra: UP Additional Chief Secretary

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The Uttar Pradesh (UP) government plans to ramp up its electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure across the state to cater to the rising number of EVs on its roads, the state’s additional chief secretary Alok Kumar said on October 14.

Speaking to Moneycontrol's editor (policy) Shweta Punj at the second season of the “Sustainable is Attainable” summit by Network18 Group and Tata Power, Kumar said UP currently has only 950 EV charging stations even as every fourth EV in India is sold from UP.

“Even as EV and hybrid car sales have picked up in UP due to subsidies offered by the state government, charging infrastructure remains the key bottleneck. The challenges are many in this field – land; multiplicity of authority; managing operations; creating the electrical infrastructure to power these stations; time taken is at least 30 minutes, which compared to ICE vehicles is a very long time,” Kumar said.

He added that on a preliminary basis, the UP government has identified high traffic corridors like expressways and some city areas.

Kumar further said the UP government is likely to send its proposal to participate in the government’s recently notified EV infrastructure programme under the PM E-Drive scheme in two months from now.

In order to accelerate the adoption of EVs, the Central government has brought guidelines for availing subsidy for vehicle charging stations, battery swapping stations and battery charging stations offering up to 100% subsidies. At least Rs 2,000 crore have been allocated for the national EV infrastructure programme.

Talking about the key initiatives by the UP government to promote green transition, Kumar said the state of UP is adding 1.5 gigawatts (GW) capacity addition in solar energy on an annual basis.

“Currently, about 28,000 acres of land has been identified for the development of solar parks in UP. In addition, we have 11 pumped hydro storage plants with a total capacity of 12,350 MW have been sanctioned and they are in various stages of clearances,” he said.

To mitigate the annual pollution problem emanating from stubble burning, Kumar said UP already has 33 compressed biogas (CBG) plants operational and 129 more are under construction. “We are planning one CBG in every district of UP,” he said.

“There is also a green hydrogen project which we are undertaking in partnership with a Japanese firm. If we are able to commercialise that then our green energy transition will be much faster,” Kumar said.