Page 23 - TrafficInfratech Magazine Feb - Mar 2020

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NH for EV Ecosystem

Agra-Delhi-Jaipur will be a 500 km e-mobility conversion program for
National Highways and Expressways into E-Highways in just 90 days with
charging stations and public transport fleets. This is aimed at converting
traffic from 10% - 30% under the Ease of Doing Business programme.
Interestingly, the entire E-Highway is equipped with geo-fencing and will be
the first country to get the Anti-Theft System (ATS) for electric vehicle fleets.
The E-Highway has charging stations within 50km of the radius on each
side. Under NHEV, all partner companies get single-window clearance in
procurement, onboard banking, investor funding, certification, designing,
intellectual property rights, trademarks, lease, purchase, finance, insurance
to support India in transforming all 12 highways into E-Highways by end
of FY 2020.
Speaking exclusively to TrafficInfraTech, Abhijeet Sinha, National
Programme Director, National Highway for Electric Vehicle said, “The
main intention of the government by announcing these E-Highways
is to reduce fuel import. Once the government starts spending
funds on creating an ecosystem such as charging infrastructure,
automatically people will start buying EVs.” However, he agreed
that the government did not have massive funds to build a pan-India
level charging infrastructure like petrol pumps, and that’s why the
government has decided to convert 12 expressways into E-Highways
in a cost-effective manner. “We earned amusing criticisms for taking
up E-Mobility on highways instead cities under our Ease of Doing
Business program in 2018. Since all city EV chargers were unable to
earn their maintenance even, today our stations on highway has 35%
utilization of capex (spent on infra) with conversion of only 0.4% of
traffic out of 27% yet convertible under NHEV,” he mentioned.
That said it takes only Rs 160Cr to convert a 500km of stretch into
an E-Highway. MoRTH is creating a road network of 30km per day,
the question is, why the government is unable to convert highways
into E-Highways.
Technology
Currently, EVs are registered like other vehicles at Regional
Transport Offices. The difference is that the number plates issued are
green in colour. EV registration data is proposed to be shared with
ATS for digitalization. EVs running on this particular stretch is safe and
secure. When an EV is reported as stolen in any Police Station, FIR is

Fact Check:
• Max 30 minutes backup TAT for EV breakdown on
national highways and Agra - Jaipur corridor
• Battery leasing model to cut down EV cost up to 45%
for State Transport & private operators
• Self-drive EV fleet management and its financing
model for CAB/BUS operators of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur

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