Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray on Tuesday inaugurated an electric vehicle charging station, set up by the BMC, at a public parking lot in Mumbai’s Dadar area, and said EVs are the need of the hour.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), in a release, claimed that the station, where seven EVs can be charged at a time, is first of its kind facility to come up at a public parking lot in the state. According to the release, speaking on the occasion, Thackeray directed the civic body to set up more charging facilities for EVs at various parking lots under its jurisdiction as “environment-friendly electric vehicles are the need of the hour”.

“In areas with a high number of electric vehicles, it is necessary to give priority to start charging stations. In this regard, a detailed survey should be conducted and charging stations should be made available in more and more parking lots,” he said.

Parking and charging facilities have been made available at the newly set up station which will be open for people round the clock, the release said. Seven chargers are available at the station and four of them are fast ones which can fully charge an EV in 1 to 1.5 hours. Three slow chargers can charge a vehicle in six hours, the release said. It said Rs 15 per unit will be collected for charging vehicles.