The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) has drawn a plan for setting up 678 electric vehicles (EV) charging stations across the state of Karnataka. The proposed plan has 100 charging stations proposed for Bangalore. Also, there are 112 charging stations set to be operational by August 2019.

The BESCOM proposal is in line with the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) program being implemented by the government of India.

The BESCOM proposal envisions setting up charging stations between every 20-25 km, for a stretch of 50 km distance on either side of the road along the Bangalore-Tumkur highway, and a 100 km stretch along the Bangalore-Mysore highway. The charging stations would be mostly set up in the premises of government buildings.

As per the new proposal, after covering Bangalore, Mysore, Hubbali-Dharwad, Davanagere are supposed to come up with charging stations, followed by Shivamogga and Belagavi.

Speaking to Mercom on the development, Sreenath C.K., Deputy General Manager, Smart Grid for BESCOM informed that the proposal had been sent by BESCOM to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) for approval.

“The plan we submitted to the BEE has been divided into three phases. In the first phase, we propose to develop EV charging stations for cities in Karnataka with at least one million population, in the second phase, we plan to cover the district headquarters, and in the third phase, we propose to build EV charging stations along the roads connecting the district headquarters. Once approved by BEE and the funding raised, we will start with the execution plan,”, informed Sreenath.

Karnataka was among the first few Indian states to launch a specific EV policy. It announced the FAME program in January 2018.

Then in January 2019, BESCOM had issued a tender for setting up 100 electric vehicle AC charging stations in and around Bangalore.

Meanwhile, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recently called stakeholders from across the transportation and renewable energy sectors for a consultation on the future of intelligent mobility in the country.