NEW DELHI: As many as 150 kerbside electric vehicle (EV) chargers will be installed on city roads on pilot basis and they will be scaled up to 5,000 in the next three years spanning across the city. The decision was taken in a review meeting held on Thursday by the Delhi government think tank Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) which is spearheading the EV project. The installation of 150 kerbside EV chargers will be on 60 PWD roadside stretches in the city, the commission said in a statement.
“The pilot project being designed by the DDC in collaboration with power discoms and PWD aims to eventually install more than 5,000 kerbside EV chargers across all major Delhi roads in the next three years,” according to the statement. Kerbside or curbside charging is a widely used concept to charge EVs while they are parked. The vehicles can be charged on roadside kerbs using either street light lamp posts or specialised charging posts set up for the purpose
The commission said that with two-wheelers and three-wheelers accounting for nearly 67 per cent of the vehicles registered in Delhi, provision of adequate charging infrastructure for these segments has been a key priority of the government. Delhi is leading the way nationally and globally by adopting this innovative way of providing 24x7 public access to EV charging, DDC vice chairman Jasmine Shah said. The Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy was launched in August 2020 with an aim to facilitate the transition to Battery EVs, so that by 2024, at least 25 per cent of the total new vehicle registrations are electric vehicles.