Govt Dumps Plans To Set Up 2,500 Electric Vehicle Charging Stations: Here's Why
Electric vehicles are slowly gaining popularity among buyers in India. In order to encourage more people towards electric vehicles, the government and manufacturers often come up with new schemes. Charging infrastructure is also improving in many parts of the country. Recently, the Karnataka government had plans for an ambitious project where they would set up around 2,500 EV charging stations across the state. However, this idea has now been scrapped, citing poor response.
The Karnataka government had planned to set up 2,500 EV charging stations across the state under a public-private partnership (PPP) model. After the initial plan failed, the government has now moved to a backup plan. They have assigned the task of setting up 100 EV charging stations to Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Bescom).
Bescom will have to fund the project, which is estimated to cost around ₹35 crore. The decision was formalised through a government order issued on June 16, following a detailed report from the Managing Director of Bescom, the project's nodal agency.
The reason the 2,500 EV charging station project was dropped is because the government didn’t receive any response from private agencies. The authorities tried to attract contractors and floated tenders almost six times but failed to attract bidders.
This project was initially announced in the 2024–25 state budget. A similar attempt in 2023–24 to set up 585 stations in nine districts had also failed, despite work orders being issued to selected bidders in October 2023.
N. Shivashankar, Bescom MD, said that many EV stations were established under the PPP model in Bengaluru in the past. Karnataka is currently the leading state with the highest number of charging stations. The state has around 5,879 EV charging stations as of March 28, 2025. Out of this, 4,000 charging stations are located in Bengaluru alone.
In 2024–25, the government had floated tenders to establish 605 charging stations across 22 districts. Even that effort from the authorities was in vain, as no interest was shown in 18 districts. Only one bidder approached them for four districts.
Shivashankar also pointed out a few reasons why the ambitious project failed. In his report, he cited, “The departments concerned did not cooperate with private agencies that received work orders to get the required land for charging stations.” Apart from this, limited EV penetration beyond Bengaluru was identified as another major reason.
While manufacturers are doing their part by introducing new EV models in the market, the government wants to push customers or the common man into buying an EV. Setting up charging infrastructure will give them the confidence to buy EVs and will also resolve the issue of long waiting times at charging stations. By installing fast chargers, people will be even more confident to take their EVs on long road trips, as they won’t have to worry about charging and driving range. Hopefully, things will improve in the coming years.