Govt to install electric vehicle charging stations on motorways

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said on Monday that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was working over a plan to convert public transport into electric vehicles in metropolitan cities of Pakistan.

Addressing a ceremony here in Islamabad, the science and technology minister said that after introducing an electric vehicle charging station in Islamabad, the govt has decided to install EV charging stations on motorways across the country.

“The project of installing EV charging stations on motorways would be completed in the next six months”, said Chaudhry after the signing ceremony of a strategic alliance agreement between govt and German company.

He said that this is the second agreement the government has signed with a foreign company for the manufacturing of electric buses.

The federal minister said the ideal rate to reap the benefits of shifting towards battery-powered buses will be to shift 40 percent of overall public transport to electronic buses in the first ten years.

Criticising the former provincial government of Punjab over Orange Line Metro Train project, Fawad Chaudhry said: “Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had spend Rs60 billion on OLMT project and the present government has to give an annual subsidy of Rs12 billion for the project.”

Last month, Fawad Chaudhry had announced that battery-powered electric buses would operate in Pakistan from this year.

Read More: ‘Karachi’s public transport to be converted into electric buses’

He said this after the signing ceremony of a strategic alliance agreement between Daewoo Pakistan Express Bus Service Limited and Skywell Automobile (Chinese firm) to set up an Electric Vehicles value chain in Pakistan.

It is pertinent to mention here that vehicles in Pakistan to be shifted on electric power as the country approved its first-ever Electric Vehicle (EV) policy in June.