India’s charging rules are more settled than they were five years ago, but they are spread across central guidelines, state EV policies, DisCom tariff orders and BIS standards — and the parts that matter most to an operator’s economics are the state and DisCom parts, which vary considerably.
Connector standards
The practical set an Indian public site needs to consider:
| Standard | Type | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|
| CCS2 | DC | The dominant DC standard for cars; effectively mandatory on any new DC site |
| CHAdeMO | DC | Legacy; a shrinking installed base, rarely worth new capex |
| Type 2 (IEC 62196-2) | AC | The standard AC socket for cars, up to 22kW three-phase |
| Bharat DC-001 | DC | Low-power 15kW DC for early Indian EVs; still relevant for older fleets |
| Bharat AC-001 | AC | Low-power 3.3kW AC; still common on two- and three-wheeler infrastructure |
| LEV AC | AC | Light electric vehicles — the two- and three-wheeler segment, which is where volume actually is |
A common and costly mistake is specifying a car-oriented site in a location whose actual EV traffic is two- and three-wheelers. India’s electrification is led by that segment by a wide margin, and the charging hardware it needs is much cheaper.
Electricity tariff treatment
Most states have created a separate tariff category for EV charging, generally at a concessional rate relative to commercial supply, and several cap or waive demand charges for a defined period. This is the single largest policy lever on your economics — a demand-charge waiver can change a site from unviable to viable on its own.
Two questions to put to your DisCom before finalising a site: is the EV tariff category applicable to this connection, and what is the demand-charge treatment including any time limit on the concession? Waivers that expire in year three should be modelled as expiring, not as permanent.
Public charging obligations
Central guidelines for public charging infrastructure set expectations around minimum infrastructure at public stations, open access to the network, and the principle that public charging does not require a licence — it is a service, not electricity resale. Operators should also expect requirements around displaying tariffs transparently and providing at least one form of payment that does not depend on a proprietary app.
That last point is worth internalising as a design principle rather than a compliance chore: a QR-to-browser flow satisfies it and improves conversion at the same time.
Where state policy diverges
- Capital subsidy on charger purchase — present in several state EV policies, usually capped per charger and per applicant, and usually requiring pre-approval rather than reimbursement after the fact.
- Land allocation for public charging at concessional rates on government or municipal land.
- Demand-charge exemptions and their duration.
- Building-code obligations requiring EV-ready provisioning in new construction, which creates the real-estate segment of the market.
- Reporting obligations attached to any subsidy — typically energy delivered, sessions and uptime, per site, periodically.
That last item is the one operators discover late. If you have taken a subsidy, you will owe reporting, and it will be per site and per period. Building that reporting after the fact from incomplete records is painful; having the session data structured from day one makes it a query.
GST
Charging is treated as a supply of service, which matters because it means input credit is available to business customers who charge with you — and therefore that fleets and corporates will want a proper tax invoice carrying their GSTIN, not a retail receipt. If you intend to serve business customers, invoice properly from the first session rather than retrofitting it.