‘Ratio between no. of charging stations and e-vehicles should be maintained’
With an increasing number of electric vehicles entering the market, sufficient charging stations need to be installed, state Transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty said, while adding that the ratio between the number of charging stations and e-vehicles should be maintained.
On the same line, Chakraborty informed of the Power department’s initiative to install 1,000 charging stations and that the Transport department is in constant touch with them. “We are also thinking of installing charging stations at petrol pumps across the state,” Chakraborty said.
He, along with the department secretary Saumitra Mohan, attended the launch of Motovault M7 which is a multi-utility e-scooter and first-of-its-kind in the country with German tech
nology. The Transport minister said that Bengal is number one in the country with its introduction of environmentfriendly vehicles. He encouraged more such inclusions in the future both from the government side as well as private. “Human existence depends on the environment and we need to protect it. We want to promote electric vehicles,” the minister said. Mohan said that e-vehicles and e-bikes are the future.
The state expects a 50 per cent rise in e-vehicles. Currently, e-vehicles ownership is mostly restricted to private but with growing numbers of
e-cabs, e-scooter and buses, the state expects to see a substantial rise. Since 2020, the number of e-vehicles in the state has almost doubled.
In 2020, there were 10,079 registered electric (batteryoperated vehicles) according to Vahan Sewa portal and in 2023 the number had risen to 21,433. In 2021, 6,408 e-vehicles were registered and in 2022 it was
11,151. The number jumped in 2023. In 2024, till date, the number of registered a-vehicle is 5,821. In mid-2022, the Transport department had announced exemption of registration fees, motor vehicle and additional taxes for two and four wheeled electric vehicles and all categories of CNG-operated vehicles which were registered between April 1 2022 to March 31, 2024.