New Delhi: The Centre has asked state governments and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to fast-track electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure across 74 priority highway corridors, according to two people aware of the development and a document reviewed by Mint. The move aims to address a key bottleneck in the adoption of electric buses and trucks in India,
The fear of running out of battery charge on longer routes, commonly referred to as ‘range anxiety’, is seen as a key deterrent to EV adoption.
In a 4 June communication to states and the NHAI, the Centre has identified 74 priority corridors for EV charging deployment, including 50 routes for electric cars and buses and 24 freight corridors for e-trucks. In the letter, reviewed by Mint, the Centre asked states to submit proposals for setting up charging infrastructure under the PM E-Drive scheme, that runs till the end of FY28.
These routes include major intercity stretches such as Ahmedabad-Mumbai, Bengaluru-Mumbai, Chennai-Nagercoil, Hyderabad-Raipur and Panipat-Gorakhpur, among others. India has 599 national highway routes that span 146,000 km.
The Centre has already sanctioned 13,800 government-run e-buses in various states under the flagship PM E-Drive scheme, and is considering a plan to support the rollout of around 50,000 more private sector over the next decade under a scheme being worked upon in the department of financial services, one of the people cited above said, requesting anonymity. Mint had first reported about the private sector e-bus support plan in February.
Under the heavy industries ministry’s ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme, the government has earmarked ₹2,000 crore to subsidize setting up of charging infrastructure across the country. Of this, the government approved a subsidy worth ₹504 crore for 4,874 public charging stations in May 2026.
Charging infrastructure is particularly critical for electric buses and trucks that require high-capacity chargers of over 240 kW. Such infrastructure often involves significant grid upgrades, making its deployment one of the toughest challenges in scaling commercial EV adoption.
Electric bus operators say the presence of charging infrastructure assists in route planning. “With better charging coverage across major highways, operators can design routes with greater confidence, optimize charging schedules, and ensure predictable journey times,” said Sudhakar Chirra, founder and chief executive of Fresh Bus, which operates 86 predominantly in south India. “It also provides greater operational flexibility when planning new routes and expanding services into emerging markets.”
Emails seeking comments from the ministry of heavy industries, the department of financial services, NHAI, and the governments of Maharashtra (the state with most EV cars), Karnataka (that has most sanctioned e-buses) and Uttar Pradesh (highest number of EVs overall) on 10 June remained unanswered.
Road transport emissions account for about 20-30% of India’s air pollution, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Trucks form a small part of India’s vehicle fleet volume (3.5% in 2025) but contribute about 33-35% of the overall road sector emission, said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi. “In winter, in Delhi-NCR, vehicular emissions may make up as much as 50% of the air pollution. A zero-emission vehicle strategy becomes crucial to mitigate this issue, in which diesel buses and trucks contribute immensely.”
Experts say such charging infrastructure should now be a part of highway development plans.
“For EV users, particularly commercial vehicle operators and regional commuters, access to periodic charging along highways is essential to enable intercity travel. This requires not just the installation of chargers, but also ensuring that they are operational and available at regular intervals,” said Amit Bhatt, India managing director at the International Council on Clean Transportation, a global think tank. “Such requirements could potentially be incorporated into highway development guidelines, including those developed by agencies such as the Indian Roads Congress.”
“It is necessary to make standards for highway building, which involve setting up unified digital and electric charging infrastructure along with roadside assistance capabilities for EVs to ensure that these upcoming chargers have higher utilization than the existing ones,” said Abhijeet Sinha, programme director of National Highways for EVs (NHEV), a pilot-testing body for such projects. “There should not be any ambiguity or disparity in EV charging services across national highways. For instance, electricity rates across different charge-point operators vary significantly,” he said.
To be sure, there is no central repository of utilization of all public EV chargers in the country yet. The heavy industries ministry is working on making a unified application (app) for India’s EV charging to collate information across operators and provide consumers information about the nearest charging stations and allow them to make payments using digital means, as reported by Mint earlier.
B.N. Puri, director of the Asian Institute of Transport Development, said that raising public awareness regarding charging locations is necessary at a time when large commercial vehicles are transitioning to electric variants. “There could also be incentives based on charger utilization,” said Puri.
India has 22,753 operational publicat state-run fuel retail pumps, with most facing low utilization. Setting up a 240 kW charger typically costs ₹8 lakh, per government estimates used to determine charger subsidy.
As for the cost of charging, while some state-run fuel retailers charge ₹12-20 per unit of electricity, private operators have higher rates that could go up to ₹40 per unit. Electric car batteries are generally of about 50-100 kWh and the bus batteries of 250-500 kWh.
An August 2025 NITI Aayog report had said EV charging stations face low utilization, indicating an uncertain return on investment. There’s also uncertainty around EV chargers being in a working condition, it said.
