Week 5 of Switch Delhi campaign to raise awareness on charging infra in city

The fifth week of the Delhi government’s Switch Delhi campaign will be aimed at raising awareness about the city’s existing and upcoming EV charging infrastructure, transport minister Kailash Gahlot said on Saturday

The fifth week of the Delhi government’s Switch Delhi campaign will be aimed at raising awareness about the city’s existing and upcoming EV charging infrastructure, transport minister Kailash Gahlot said on Saturday.

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“The Delhi government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure a smooth transition to EVs for the people of Delhi. With a three-pronged strategy, the Kejriwal government has taken lead across India in installing sound charging infrastructure in Delhi for a smooth transition to EVs. The vision of the Kejriwal government to establish a charging point at a distance of every 3kms will increase confidence in people to make the switch to EV and pave the way for making Delhi the EV capital of India,” said Gahlot.

The Delhi government has floated the largest tender in India, so far, to build 100 public charging stations with 500 charging points at prominent locations. These will be operational by December 2021 and will add to the existing 72 stations already operational in Delhi.

“Details of these can be seen on the website ev.delhi.gov.in. Delhi government is also building a mobile app to ensure that the geo-locations of all charging stations and the status of chargers, whether they are occupied or available for use, can be seen real time,” he said.

Secondly, in a historic step taken this week, Delhi will soon have more than 10,000 chargers by December as all commercial and institutional buildings such as malls, shopping complexes, cinema halls/multiplexes, office spaces, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, etc that have a parking capacity of more than 100 vehicles will soon have to set aside at least 5% of their total parking capacity for EVs along with suitable slow EV chargers, Gahlot said.

A suitable amendment in Delhi’s building by-laws has already been initiated to enable this. The Kejriwal government is the first and only government in India to take such a progressive step. At present, 20% area in parking facilities already have to be kept aside for EV parking in all new constructions under unified building bylaws for Delhi.