Editorial: Get the RWAs to see the EV light

• Last week (Nov. 8), the Tamil Nadu Housing and Urban Development Department amended building rules in Chennai to make it mandatory for residential, commercial, and other large buildings to provide electric vehicle (EV) charging points at each of their parking slots for cars and two-wheelers. Further, buildings with more than 50 dwelling units, parking spaces earmarked for visitors, should also have fast-charging points. Smaller residential buildings with fewer than nine dwelling units are exempt.

As a measure to accelerate the EV transition, this amendment is welcome. However, nationwide, such initiatives have tended to apply only prospectively, implying that existing buildings are not explicitly required to undergo retrofitting. It would have been better if the new rules came with incentives for old buildings to get retrofitted as well. Adoption of electric mobility in India is presently highly constrained by the snail-paced growth of recharge infrastructure. Encouraging existing premises to get on board would have been the way to go, sweetened with property tax rebates and the like.

India is hoping that the share of electric vehicles will reach 30% (presently less than 8%) by 2030. To enable that target, the number of charging stations (public and semi-public) needed is projected at 39 lakh, at a recommended ratio of 1 charging station for every 20 EVs on the road. With about 1,700 charging stations, Tamil Nadu is among the better-performing states in terms of charging infrastructure. Karnataka tops the list with 6,097, followed by Maharashtra with 4,155. Considering that these are industrialised states with a proven record of policy implementation, these are ridiculously low numbers for so ambitious a target.

It is quite patent that India will never reach its EV transition targets solely by promoting public and commercial charging infrastructure. Several problems are currently hindering that rollout, chief among them being high land costs and grid capacity limitations. Encouraging the installation of private and residential charging facilities can ease this problem by enabling recharge at home or the workplace without the need for additional land allocation. In the US and Europe, the majority of recharge happens at home, at night when the load on the power grid has eased. Additionally, a side benefit of at-home recharge is faster adoption of electric mobility due to the keeping up with the Joneses factor. With this in view, the Union government is guiding that all new public buildings and residential complexes should make at least 20% of their parking spaces EV-ready. The latest amendment passed by Tamil Nadu is in alignment with that policy.

However, decentralised residential recharge infrastructure has its own set of problems. As we have experienced with the promotion of rainwater recharge and solar power, resistance from residential welfare associations (RWAs) is a huge barrier in India. Many apartment complexes oppose the installation of charging points at parking slots out of apathy, if not antipathy. Frequently, the cost of installation or operational safety is held up as a shield to block any initiative.

The state government must therefore not stop at mandating a rule change. Instead, it needs to go a step further to take RWAs into confidence and incentivise them to get on board. As the BJP has shown in the last 10 years, RWA WhatsApp communities are quite receptive to ideas and incentives, and become aggressively evangelical once they see the light.