Public charging points are still too few, often difficult to locate, and sometimes unreliable. While this gap presents a concern, it also offers a major opportunity for innovation and leadership to expand the country’s charging network. As India pursues its ambitious target of ensuring that 30% of all new vehicle sales are electric by 2030, the development of complementary infrastructure, particularly charging facilities, has become an urgent national priority. A recent report by CareEdge Ratings captures both the impressive progress and remaining challenges.

Between FY22 and early FY25, the number of public charging stations in India surged from approximately 5,000 to over 26,000, marking a remarkable 70% growth rate in just three years. However, this rapid expansion still falls short of demand. The report highlights that there is currently only one public charging station for every 235 EVs in India, leading to long wait times and persistent range anxiety among users. This imbalance underscores a critical reality: while EV adoption is accelerating, charging infrastructure is struggling to keep pace.

The Challenges

The reasons for this lag are multifaceted. Identifying and allocating suitable land parcels for infrastructure remains one of the main challenges. In most Indian cities, land is controlled by multiple agencies — municipal corporations, revenue departments, schools, and transport undertakings — making coordination complex. Even when land is identified, selecting the right sites according to national guidance requires careful feasibility studies that take into account land use patterns, traffic flows, and vehicle density, but such data is often incomplete or outdated. Coordination with land-owning agencies is another major barrier. Many agencies lack tools to estimate the potential revenue or public value of installing charging stations on their land, resulting in low prioritization.

Financial viability poses yet another challenge. High electricity tariffs and power connection costs make it difficult for Charge Point Operators (CPOs) to recover their investments, deterring private investment. Without measures to reduce these costs, the expansion of charging infrastructure is likely to remain slow. Grid readiness is another pressing concern. In several states, a lack of regional EV load forecasting hampers planning by utilities and agencies, creating the risk of grid bottlenecks as demand rises. Limited monitoring and data collection further make it difficult to assess charger utilization and performance. Establishing EV dashboards at the state level would enable more effective monitoring, but such mechanisms are still rare.

The Role of Local Governments

Given these barriers, the actions of state and city governments is pivotal to adoption. National initiatives such as the FAME scheme, CESL programs, and the PM e-Drive scheme (launched in 2024 with a ₹2,000 crore, or USD $255 million, investment into deploy 72,000 fast chargers) are helping to create a framework for reducing capital costs for operators. The preparatory groundwork, however, including land allocation, streamlined approvals, tariff rationalization, and coordination platforms, must still come from the states and municipal agencies.

Several front-runner states have begun demonstrating what this can look like in practice. Delhi, for example, has addressed land bottlenecks by offering concessional rates for charging and swapping stations and mapping high-utilization sites to minimize delays caused by multiple land-owning agencies. The city also introduced one of the lowest EV tariffs in the country and established a State Charging Infrastructure Committee, which brings together agencies, utilities, and private operators to fast-track decisions. To enhance financial viability for operators, Delhi has also provided capital subsidies for installation.

The state of Karnataka has further focused on intercity connectivity by installing charging stations along major routes such as the Bangalore–Mysore Expressway and the Bangalore–Chennai Highway, helping make long-distance EV travel more practical and reducing range anxiety. In ITDP India’s Status Report for Public Charging Infrastructure in Tamil Nadu, regional models like Singapore offer strong examples of proactive planning. By leveraging public housing car parks, the Singapore added 22,600 charging points across 1,900+ sites, while providing 50% rebates for chargers in both public and private facilities — substantially reducing costs for operators and users alike.

While these examples showcase progress, the broader challenge remains to scale more models nationwide. The path forward for most Indian states lies in: simplifying administrative procedures with better coordination, digitizing platforms that match land parcels with potential operators, introducing state incentives to complement national programs, and engaging with municipal agencies to plan for grid demand. By aligning these actions, states can transform fragmented initiatives into a coherent ecosystem that makes EV charging more viable, scalable, and reliable. India’s experience offers valuable lessons for other economies pursuing similar expansion.