With an aim to promote to e-mobility in the district, 32 charging stations for electric vehicles will be installed in Thiruvananthapuram. The government has accorded administrative sanction for the project taken up as part of its electric vehicle policy.
As per the policy, the state aims to introduce one million electric vehicles on the road by 2022. Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) was appointed as the nodal agency for setting up electronic-vehicle charging stations.
KSEB had submitted a proposal for installing charging stations at 185 locations in six cities in the state. “The government has considered the proposal by KSEB, and as a pilot project, decided to install 32 charging stations with six charging points each in Thiruvananthapuram,” states the government order issued by transport department.
The government has accorded administrative sanction to KSEB to draw Rs 8.2 crore from e-mobility promotion fund of the state. An amount of Rs 3.75 lakh is allotted for each charging point (total of Rs 7.20 crore) and Rs 1 crore will be given for power supply and related civil work for stations.
“We are utilising central and state government schemes to install charging stations across the state. We have submitted a proposal to ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises, which has announced subsidy for investing in charging stations. We have plans to set up one charging station in each corporation,” said N S Pillai, KSEB chairman.
“The charging stations will be installed in lands under the government, especially KSEB, and taxi stands. They will be installed by KSEB or in PPP model or through any agency. We require land for installation of charging station in more locations. A letter was sent to transport, finance and power department secretaries for permission to allot vacant lands to install charging stations. Also, there is a proposal to install charging stations at national highway stretch at an interval of 25km. While we are installing charging stations, sufficient number of electric vehicles should be available here to utilise the facility,” Pillai said.
Now, charging stations for KSRTC buses are available at Pappanamcode depot and Secretariat.
KSEB has invited expression of interest from competent agencies to set up the facility. It has proposed to charge Rs 5 per unit as power tariff for EV charging station.
