Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday laid foundation stones for the paid electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at Hutatma Chowk, Kala Ghoda Chowk, and Rampart Row, all three locations under BMC's 'A' ward (Churchgate, Colaba, and Fort). For the first three months, citizens can use the facility without any charges.
According to BMC officials, the work to construct nine EV charging stations at the three locations commenced as soon as the foundation stone was laid by the minister on Tuesday.
Announcing the initiative in South Mumbai on Tuesday, Aaditya Thackeray took to Twitter, "Commenced works for 9 EV charging stations at Hutatma Chowk, Kala Ghoda, and Rampat Marg, in the 'A' ward. The stations will soon be available for citizens to use and the target is to hit around 50 stations at the earliest to facilitate charging while people are at work."
"All these three places under 'A' ward will have three charging points each, altogether nine charging points. Also, each charging point will have a 7.4 kW AC charging capacity. For this, a single-phase power supply will be provided, so it will be possible to build the charging station in a small space and a small size. In addition, these charging stations are relatively easy to maintain," said Chanda Jadhav, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of 'A' ward.
The Maharashtra government had announced its revised electronic vehicle (EV) policy in July this year. It proposed changes in the development control rules (DCR) to promote the setting up of EV charging stations at parking lots of housing societies and corporate parks.
In its revised policy, the state intends to set up 1,500 charging stations in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), 500 in Pune, 150 in Nagpur, 100 in Nashik, 75 in Aurangabad, 30 in Amravati, and 20 in Solapur city. It plans to set up at least one public charging station in a 3 km x 3 km grid or a minimum of 50 charging stations per million population, whichever is higher, officials said.
By 2025, the state also intends to provide full-scale infrastructure for electric vehicles on four major highways — Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway, Mumbai-Pune Express Highway, Mumbai-Nashik, and Nashik-Pune highway. The revised policy will remain valid till March 31, 2025.
As soon as the revised EV policy was unveiled in July, Thackeray inaugurated the first public EV charging station at a parking lot at Dadar's Kohinoor building. The EV public charging station, which can accommodate seven EVs to recharge at a time, is the first of its kind to come up at a public parking lot in the state.
