Panchayat EV Charging Stations: Centre CESL Pact to Bring Charging and Battery Swapping to Village Land

Gram panchayats across India will soon be able to host electric vehicle charging and battery-swapping stations on land they own, under a new partnership between the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL).

The memorandum of understanding was exchanged in New Delhi on 30 October between Mukta Shekhar, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, and Akhilesh Kumar Dixit of CESL, in the presence of Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh and Ministry Secretary Vineet Joshi.

The stations are planned at suitable panchayat-owned locations, including premises near gram panchayat offices and sites along state and national highways, so that the charging network reaches far beyond metropolitan cities into rural and semi-urban India.

The facilities will cater to a wide range of electric vehicles, from two-wheelers and three-wheelers to four-wheelers and medium and heavy commercial vehicles, strengthening the ecosystem for large-scale EV adoption in villages and small towns.

Under the arrangement, the Ministry will coordinate with state Panchayati Raj departments to identify and monitor suitable sites, while CESL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Limited under the Ministry of Power, will handle site assessment, demand aggregation, supply, installation, testing, commissioning, operation and maintenance.

For panchayats, the partnership opens a new source of own revenue, as income from charging and battery-swapping facilities on their land can support local development work, and it fits with the government’s recently released Model Panchayat Tax, Rates and Fees Rules that give rural local bodies a framework for transparent revenue mobilisation.