Indus to use its Telecom Tower Network to Host EV Charging Stations

Indus Towers has announced its plans to utilise its large network of telecom towers spread across the country to host EV charging stations.

Indus Towers Ltd., India’s largest mobile tower company has announced its plans to utilise its large network of telecom towers spread across the country to host EV charging stations. The company plans to get into what it claims to be a fledgling industry and eventually morph into an overall charging infrastructure provider.

It would also help Indus Towers reduce dependence on the troubled domestic telecom sector, still recovering from the disruptions caused by the entry of Reliance Jio in the market. Forcing smaller providers to either close operations or pool their services, leaving only two competitors in the market in Vodafone and Bharti Airtel. With fewer telecom tenants, the tower industry has gone from being a seller’s market over three years ago to a buyer’s market currently.

And this move by Indus, will allow it to secure a unique revenue stream outside the traditional model of renting out its towers to mobile phone operators. And, the company believes that hosting EV charging units is a natural extension for its business because of its large footprint.

The announcement comes a few weeks after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam expanded room for the expansion of electric vehicles in India. In this year’s budget, the government announced an income tax rebut of up to Rs 1.5 lakh to customers on interest paid on loans to buy electric vehicles, with a total exemption benefit of Rs 2.5 lakh over the entire loan period.

The company, which was incorporated in November 2007 as a joint venture between certain entities of Bharti Group, Vodafone Group and Idea Cellular, is in the final stages of completing a merger with Bharti Infratel Ltd. Last April, the two tower companies had agreed to merge their businesses to create the world’s largest tower company outside China. The combined entity will own more than 163,000 towers, second only to China Tower.

Recently, Vakrangee Ltd announced its plans to set-up Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure pan India through its Nextgen Vakrangee Kendra outlets. Through these outlets, the company has set a target of reaching at least 75,000 charging stations by FY2021-22 and 3,00,000 outlets by FY2024-25.