What makes up the price at a public EV charger in India: energy, service charge, land and GST

When you tap start on a charging app and see ₹20 or more per unit, only a small part of that is the electricity. Under the Ministry of Power's Guidelines for Installation and Operation of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, 2024, the fee a charge point operator collects from you is allowed to have four parts: the electricity supply tariff the operator pays its discom, a service charge per kWh, a land cost per kWh as per the registered land deed, and GST on top.

That structure is the whole answer to why home charging is so much cheaper. At home you pay only the tariff. At a public charger you pay the tariff plus everything the operator spends to put a 60 kW machine on a forecourt and keep it working.

The four parts, and what each is capped at

The first part is the supply tariff. The guidelines say the tariff for electricity supplied to a public charging station shall not exceed the average cost of supply, and they push discoms to charge 0.7 times the average cost of supply during solar hours and 1.3 times outside them. Solar hours are defined as 9 am to 4 pm.

The second part is the service charge, and this is where the money is. The ceiling, excluding GST and land cost, is ₹3 per unit for AC charging during solar hours and ₹4 outside, and ₹11 per unit for DC charging during solar hours and ₹13 outside. Those ceilings run until 31 March 2028.

The third part is land. Where a charging station sits on land belonging to a government agency, the operator pays ₹1 per kWh to that agency, settled quarterly, and private land is bid out with that figure as a floor.

The fourth part is tax. The Karnataka Authority for Advance Ruling held on 13 July 2023, in a matter brought by Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation, that charging an EV battery at a station is a supply of service under SAC 998714 and attracts 18 per cent GST. The energy and the service charge are not treated as two separate components. That matters when you compare app prices, because a rate quoted before tax and a rate quoted after tax are not the same number.

What Karnataka adds on top

KERC's order of 1 August 2024 fixed the energy charge for EV charging in the state at ₹4.50 per kWh. It also allows individual connections up to 150 kW on an LT supply, lets apartment residents charge within their sanctioned load or raise it with the discom's approval, and permits LT or HT sub-meters inside a building, with sub-meter consumption billed at the EV rate and deducted from the main meter. Buildings with a requisitioned load of 250 kW or more and over 5,000 sq m of built-up area must put in two charging points.

Why BESCOM's own chargers undercut the apps

BESCOM runs its own public network through the EV Mitra app, and because it is the discom, it is not paying anyone else's margin. From 1 August 2024 its rates were revised up by 11 paise a unit to ₹7.67 per kWh at fast charging stations, ₹7 per kWh for normal DC and ₹6.86 per kWh for normal AC. The same report put private operators at ₹22 to ₹25 per kWh.

So before you road trip out of Bengaluru, work out which of the two you are plugging into. A BESCOM point and a private ultra-fast hub are both legal, both within the ceiling, and nowhere near the same price per unit.

Sources

• Ministry Of Power Releases EV Charging Infrastructure Guidelines, Mercom India
• MoP releases guidelines for Installation and Operation of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure-2024, Power Line
• KERC Issues Guidelines for Installing EV Charging Points in Buildings, Mercom India
• 18% GST Payable On Service of Charging Of Battery Of Electrical Vehicle: AAR, LiveLaw
• KERC makes Bescom revise EV charging tariff by 11 paise per unit, EV Mechanica