Competition from the growing electric vehicle segment is coming right to the door steps of oil companies with the Power Ministry now mooting the idea to have at least one EV charging station at all the fuel pumps in the country.

If the Power Ministry suggestions are implemented, all 70,000 fuel pumps across the country could be facilitating electric vehicles that have been challenging their own existence by shifting the consumer base away from oil to other greener sources of energy.

At present, the Petroleum Ministry has mandated all new fuel pumps to have infrastructure for at least one alternative fuel. But existing pumps are not mandated to follow this guideline and can continue selling only petrol and diesel as long as they find a market for it.

It has been reported that at a high level meeting convened to review charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, the Power Ministry sought that the Petroleum Ministry issue directions to all oil companies under their administrative control to carve out some area from their existing fuel pumps for setting up EV charging stations.

This could be done immediately in the case of all company-owned and company-operated (COCO) fuel pumps. For other fuel stations, run by franchisees, the Power Ministry said, an advisory can be issued seeking this facility.

The Power Ministry believes this can immediately address the issue of limited growth of charging stations at present as in one go, there would be thousands of such EV points across the country also at places that are already familiar with the users.