Placing Pune on track to become India's first EV ready city; PMC to announce new policy decisions from July 1

Pune: Giving a push to the city's Electric Vehicle (EV)-readiness, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is all geared up to make additional electricity load mandatory in all new residential buildings from July 1 for the provision of encouraging EV charging stations and also reserve parking for EV in public and off-road parking places across the city. Such measures are expected to boost the sale of EVs in the city.

At a meeting of the PMC’s EV cell on Wednesday, the Municipal Commissioner, Vikram Kumar, while strategising on how to further promote the use of EVs in the city said, “In 2021, a total of 6,205 EVs were registered in Pune. So far, in 2022, Pune city has witnessed 8220 EV registrations already till May 2022. EV cell shall aim to take the necessary steps to further boost the EV registrations in the city”.

He further added that, “The EV cell reached a consensus on mandating an additional electricity load for the provision of EV charging stations in all new residential buildings planned in Pune city starting July 1.”

In the meeting with all the EV-related government agencies on Wednesday, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Corporation Limited (MSEDCL) proposed that the new residential housing societies should have a separate meter for EV charging stations as an economical benefit for citizens. “The tariff for EV is less than the tariff for residential purposes. Thus, the separate meter for EV charging station will be cheaper for citizens,” said an official of MSEDCL.

The EV cell also had a discussion about allocating a certain percentage of the parking locations in the new and existing commercial buildings like malls, cinema halls, hospitals, universities, colleges, etc. for EVs. “To incentivise the use of EVs by the citizens, the EV cell also discussed the provision of reserving certain percentages of parking spots in public and off-road parking spaces across the city for EVs,” said another civic officer.

The Maharashtra EV policy 2021 decrees certain provisions which fall under the jurisdiction of cities for accelerating the adoption of electrical vehicles (EVs) across the state. Talking about the deployment of these provisions in Pune, the Municipal Commissioner, Vikram Kumar said, “Pune city has been one of the leaders in deploying these provisions on the ground. The PMC would now focus on a few of these provisions like property tax rebates, building bylaws, parking preferences, etc. The civic body is also studying the feasibility of deploying global EV practices like Low emission zones, awareness campaigns, etc. in the city of Pune.”

He added that in a further move to encouage the use of EVs by citizens, the EV cell explored the option to provide a certain rebate on the property tax for individual house owners upon installation of EV charging infrastructure. He also requested EV cell members to collectively design and implement an EV awareness campaign to sensitise the citizens about the environmental and economic benefits of electric vehicles.