Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), a public sector unit under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, is set to become the nodal agency responsible for assessing demand and aggregating requirements for electric vehicle (EV) chargers across India. BHEL will also develop an application to streamline EV charging infrastructure, enabling real-time slot booking, payment integration, charger availability status, and national deployment tracking under the Prime Minister E-Drive scheme.

The government plans to install 72,000 public EV chargers with an outlay of Rs 20 billion by the end of the financial year 2026. These chargers will be strategically located along 50 national highway corridors and in high-traffic areas such as metro cities, toll plazas, railway stations, airports, fuel outlets, and state highways.

As of 1 April, India had 26,367 public EV charging stations, with 1,165 added in the first three months of 2025. Expanding this infrastructure aims to reduce range anxiety among potential EV buyers by improving accessibility.

Under the PM E-Drive scheme’s Rs 109 billion budget, around 40 per cent is allocated to incentivise electric buses, and Rs five billion is dedicated to supporting electric trucks in public transportation and logistics.

This initiative builds on the earlier Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric (and Hybrid) vehicles (FAME) schemes, which ran from fiscal year 2015 to 2024, aiming to accelerate electric mobility in India.

Source:Mint