Electrification of 25% public transport, 75 charging stations…, Maharashtra’s new EV policy focuses on 5 UAs including Aurangabad

Yogesh Gole

Aurangabad, July 15: The new electric vehicle (EV) policy announced by the State Government yesterday aims at 25% electrification of public transport by 2025 in five Urban Agglomerations (UAs) in the State - Aurangabad, Greater Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and Nashik. These cities record high percentage of Particulate Matter 2.5, the fine inhalable particles causing pollution and health hazards. The policy also calls for setting up 75 public charging stations in Aurangabad city by this period. To be precise, norms say set up at least one public charging station in a 3 km x 3 km grid or a minimum of 50 charging stations per million population, whichever is higher.

While Aurangabad today has 2, 3 and 4-wheeler EV dealerships, it has a long way to go to introduce EVs for the public transport and installing public charging stations.

Currently, the public transport vehicles entirely depend on petrol and diesel. The Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Ltd (ASDCL), which runs Smart City bus service, has a fleet of 100 buses all running on diesel. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) buses, vehicles transporting industrial workers, also run on fossil fuels.

Former CMIA president Mukund Kulkarni opined having enough dealerships and charging points are the issues that needed to be discussed. “Offices will have to be encouraged to provide charging facilities. Vehicles can also be charged at home but for 2 and 3-wheelers it may be inconvenient. For worker transport vehicles, public charging stations are must,’’ he said adding there have been informal discussions about buying EV cars in bulk among groups of industrialists but EVs for workers transport may take more time.

The government had declared its maiden EV policy in February 2018 but EV sale did not pick up mainly because of high cost and lack of charging infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether monetary incentives and push on charging infrastructure that new policy envisages will lead to paradigm shift.

ASCDCL to buy e-buses

The AMC and the ASCDCL are chalking out a detailed plan to move toward EV regime. ASCDCL will purchase 5 e-buses and 10 e-cars. Soon, AMC will also be purchasing EVs. Talks are on with companies like Tata Power for establishing charging stations in Aurangabad.

AMC administrator Astikumar Pandey.

Ready for greener transport

My experience of using an electric car since July last year is very good. Atmosphere in Aurangabad is conducive for the shift to greener transport. Industries are mulling EVs for workers transport but buying these buses need extensive capital investment which they are not able to do because of the current pandemic situation.

Prasad Kokil,

vice-chairman of Confederation of India Industry (Marathwada zone)

E-com, mobility aggregators need to change

E-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart, last mile delivery/logistics players Zomato, Swiggy, other courier and delivery firms, mobility aggregators like Ola, Uber, black-yellow taxi will have to shift to 25 per cent electrification and have been asked to submit a detailed plan within six months.