In a move to make it easy for people to switch to electric vehicles (EV) and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has made amendments to the Model Building Byelaws (MBBL) 2016 and Urban Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines 2014 making provisions for setting up EVs charging stations in residential and commercial buildings, bus terminals and service stations and multi-level parking lots.
The amendments include offering round the-clock charging infrastructure facility to all electric vehicles in residential buildings, increasing electricity load for all buildings, setting up charging bays at 20% capacity of all vehicles and on-spot metering and payment services in both commercial and residential buildings.
If successful, this will make EVs more attractive and cost-effective to people - changing the way they have been driving till now. This will make easy for people to switch to EVs. The amendments in the guidelines have been circulated to all the State Governments and Union
Territories with the request to amend their Building Byelaws and Master Plan Regulations. Additionally, the building premise will have to have an additional power load, equivalent to the power required for all charging points (in a Public Charging System (PCS) ) to be operated. There should be sufficient space for charging and entry/exit for vehicles. Any PCS installed at Public/Private areas or building premises of any category that caters to commercial mode of charging of EVs shall be deemed as a Public Charging Station and shall have to install the minimum requirements of chargers as specified in the guidelines.
The amendment allows one public charging system to be set up at every 25 kms on both sides of highways and inter-city corridors. Similarly, one fast charging station is to be set up at every 100 kms on both sides of highways and roads. In industrial parks or estates, land for at least one point charging station is to be reserved within a grid of 10km x 10 km. The amendment also allows setting up a battery swapping station along the highways and intercity corridors.
As per amendment, the tariff for supply of EVs will be determined by the competent authority and Central Electricity Authority will be create a data base to this effect.
According to the amendment, the government will create ‘favourable ecosystems’ in nine polluted cities having over 4 million populations. It will gradually be extended to cities that have population of one million-plus. It will also cover Mumbai-Pune corridor, Delhi-Jaipur expressway, Ahmedabad-Vadodara expressway, Delhi-Agra Yamuna expressway, Bengaluru-Mysore expressway, Bengaluru-Chennai, Surat-Mumbai highway, Agra-Lucknow highway, Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressway, Delhi-Agra NH 2 and Hyderabad Outer Ring Road expressway.
According to data, India’s per capita emissions are still considered low at 1.9 tonnes (2013), but its total emissions are next only to China and the US and is likely to overtake those of the European Union by 2019. Delhi is on top as the biggest emitter at over 38 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent overall emissions, followed by Greater Mumbai at 22.7 million tonnes and Chennai at 22.1 million tonnes, Kolkata at 14.8million tonnes, Bangalore at 19.8million tonnes, Hyderabad at 13.7 million tonnes and Ahmedabad at 9million tonnes were the other cities whose emissions for the year were calculated sector wise.
As per the statistics of Delhi government, total number of vehicles in Delhi is more than the combined total vehicles in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Delhi has 85 private cars per 1000 population against the national average of 8 cars per 1000 population. In terms of CO2 emissions due to motor vehicles, Delhi emits about 12.4 million tonnes while the city of Bengaluru emits about 8.6 million tonnes.
