More Than 13 Lakh EVs Registered In India: Gadkari

More than 13 lakh electric vehicles (EVs) are registered in India excluding Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Lakshadweep, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India, Nitin Gadkari, said in a recent written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

The minister revealed that 2,877 public EV charging stations have been sanctioned in 68 cities across 25 states as well as 1,576 EV charging stations set up under Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) Phase-II scheme across 9 expressways and 16 highways.

“The number of electric vehicles in the country is 13,34,385 (excluding data of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Lakshadweep, which is not available in VAHAN 4) as on 14-07-2022 and a total of 2,826 public charging stations are operational in the country, as per the Bureau of Energy Efficiency,” he said. Nitin Gadkari shared that according to the World Road Statistics (WRS) of the International Road Federation, Geneva, India recorded 1.5 lakh road accident fatalities in 2020. This is 26.37 per cent of total road accidents recorded in 207 countries.

As an answer to another question, he replied that there are 27,25,87,170 registered vehicles in India, which is 13.24 per cent of total 2,05,81,09,486 vehicles registered in as many countries. Upon being questioned about the ministry getting complaints if the toll is being collected from toll roads following the expiration of agreement period under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and recovery of capital cost in the country, Gadkari replied in the affirmative, “Complaints have been received in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) regarding collection of user fee from All India Motor Transport Congress and Kolhapur District Lorry Operators Association,” he said.

Three years ago, Nitin Gadkari, had informed the Lok Sabha during the monsoon session that there were close to 4 lakh (3,97,184) registered electric vehicles (EVs) or battery operated vehicles in India and that more than half (54 percent) of such vehicles were registered in Uttar Pradesh and in the capital city of Delhi.

Responding to a question raised in the Parliament, the minister informed the Lok Sabha in his written response that “UP has 1.39 lakh registered electric vehicles followed by nearly 75,746 in Delhi. Karnataka with 31,947 vehicles has the third highest number of registered e-vehicles and Maharashtra with 19,239 comes next. Interestingly, Assam also has a high number of electric vehicles,15192, among all northeastern states and more than many states in north, south and western India.”