Massive developments in electric mobility in the last few years have led India to focus intricately on the EV sector. The public and private sector collaboration, along with policy reforms, has helped the industry to grow in India. The most recent estimates in India reveal that India’s EV sales have grown by 25% in the first quarter of FY25, driven by the passenger EV segment, which is estimated to grow 40% in FY to reach a total of 1.38 lakh units. At the same time, the commercial segment is also witnessing rapid progress, with an 84.3% increase in May 2025 as compared to the previous year. However, while the public focus on electric mobility rises unprecedentedly, creating a robust, reliable charging infrastructure across the country becomes more important than ever.
According to the Press Information Bureau of the Government of India, the country had 26,367 public EV charging stations across tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 cities in April 2025. However, the country’s EV revolution requires millions of operational public charging stations, which will be the cornerstone of India’s EV revolution going forward. Establishing a reliable EV charging infrastructure in the country will mean that proactive maintenance will be done on a regular basis on all public charging stations, essentially boosting the functionality of electric mobility beyond urban areas. A reliable and robust EV infrastructure will be required to be set up ahead of the EV adoptions, essentially incentivising users to migrate from ICE vehicles to electric mobility.
Development & deployment of charging infrastructure
The Indian EV revolution is underway, and the appropriate time to set up and deploy a reliable charging infrastructure is now. This is because proactive EV charging infrastructure development provides the essential confidence to users to transition from ICE to EVs. Oslo, the capital of Norway, with one of the highest EV adoption rates per capita, is an appropriate example of this aspect. The country focused on developing public charging infrastructure well before electric mobility made inroads there. They focused on setting up both fast and slow charging options, well before EV adoption took off in the country. This essentially helped the users with ample public charging infrastructure available when they bought their first EVs, and the migration from ICE to electric mobility became more streamlined than expected.
What this particular example showcases is that EV adoption follows EV charging infrastructure. Without the availability of a robust charging infrastructure, users do not find the ROI to migrate to electric mobility. This is one of the major reasons for the low to very low penetration of EVs in peri-urban and rural areas, where existing users are forced to invest in residential chargers and are operationally restricted to a certain region. This challenge can be addressed by focusing on destination charging first at workplaces, homes and living hubs, and fast public charging at city hubs, followed by highways and transit locations.
Role of a robust Public-Private collaboration
The proactive role being extended by the Indian government will be highly beneficial to the private sector going forward. The government must also look towards coming up with clear guidelines and policies related to single window clearances for easy installation of EV chargers. This will help to benchmark transparent safety and infrastructure guidelines, e.g. NBC guidelines. Furthermore, policies regarding financial incentives and subsidies like FAME could be emphasised to be extended in the form of grants for early EV charging infrastructure investments. Another aspect of this could be reducing electricity tariffs for EV charging businesses, which will essentially help the masses in the form of reduced expenses.
In the long term, the government must look at proactive infrastructure development by upgrading power grids to reliably support widespread EV charging. Additionally, the government must look towards setting up EV charging infrastructure at key locations and government properties. These aforementioned aspects will further bolster the existing public-private collaboration, aligning with the country’s EV revolution.
Private sector to spearhead efforts
Supplementing India’s EV revolution in the coming years must be spearheaded by the private sector, and will be a multidimensional aspect. Companies will need to prioritise innovation with the rapid deployment of advanced EV charging technologies. This will help to bring global best practices to the country and deploy them via innovative business models. Furthermore, the subsequent operational expertise in managing, maintaining and scaling EV charging networks efficiently will significantly transform real-time customer service and technical support for users. This will essentially bring in customer-centric solutions such as digital interfaces and reliable charging experiences. By offering diverse EV charging solutions like fast charging and smart billing, users are attracted to migrate to the electric mobility alternatives. With the government paving the way for value creation and businesses innovating promptly, India’s EV revolution will become more robust, with added benefits through nationwide, reliable charging infrastructure.
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