Mumbai gets its first public electric vehicle charging station

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has set up Mumbai's first public electric vehicle charging station in Dadar. On Tuesday, Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray inaugurated the EV charging station at the parking lot of Kohinoor building in Dadar.

The EV public charging station, which can accommodate seven EVs to recharge at a time, is the first of its kind facility to come up at a public parking lot in the state.

According to the BMC, the newly launched EV charging station will remain open for users round the clock. Among the seven chargers that are available at the station, four of them are fast ones which can fully charge an electric car in about one to one and a half hours. The other three are the regular EV chargers that is capable of fully recharging an electric car in about six hours. BMC will charge ₹15 per unit for charging vehicles.

After inaugurating the EV charging station, Thackeray took to social media saying that it is a step to promote usage of electric vehicles and protect the environment. "Inaugurated an EV enabled parking lot at Kohinoor building in Mumbai. This is very encouraging as we move in the direction of making Maharashtra Electric Vehicle friendly," he tweeted.

Thackeray also wrote, "We had announced our state's EV policy about a month ago. It is heartening to witness such efforts from all fronts. This is one of the many steps we as govt take for the greater good of our earth."

Thackeray has also asked the BMC to set up more charging facilities for electric vehicles at various parking lots under its jurisdiction as "environment-friendly electric vehicles are the need of the hour". He said, “In areas with a high number of electric vehicles, it is necessary to give priority to start charging stations. In this regard, a detailed survey should be conducted and charging stations should be made available in more and more parking lots."