EV charging for housing societies

1. Can a society refuse?

This is the question, so here is the honest answer: a society's power to refuse is narrower than most committees assume, but it is not zero.

• Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003 obliges a distribution licensee to supply electricity to an owner or occupier on request. Society consent is not written in as a precondition.
• In January 2025 a division bench of the Bombay High Court found in favour of a resident's right to install an EV charger.
• A 2022 Maharashtra circular requires a society to issue a no-objection certificate within seven days where safety norms are met.
• Parking, though, is generally common property, and modifications to common property do legitimately involve the society.

The workable reading is this. A society can reasonably ask where the cable runs, how the point is protected, who pays for the electricity, and whether the building's load can carry it. It is on much weaker ground issuing a blanket refusal to a resident whose installation is safe and compliant.

2. Whose electricity is it?

Billing causes more disputes than the engineering ever does, because a charger left on the common-area meter quietly spreads one resident's fuel bill across every flat.

Three arrangements are clean:

• Off the resident's own flat meter. Simplest and fairest — the domestic tariff applies and the cost lands where it belongs. Practical when the bay is close enough to run a dedicated circuit from the flat's board.
• A dedicated society EV connection. The 2024 guidelines specifically allow resident welfare associations and housing societies to take a separate metered connection on the dedicated EV tariff. Sessions are metered per resident by RFID and recovered through the monthly maintenance bill.
• Individual submeters. One per charging point, read monthly. Workable, but it is one more thing for the committee to administer.

What never works is an unmetered socket in the basement. It ends in an argument every time.

3. Assigned bays versus shared bays

Societies split into two quite different projects, and confusing them wastes money.

• Assigned parking. Each owner charges in their own bay. Effectively several small independent installations; the society's role is approving the cable route and the protection.
• Shared or stack parking. A few charging bays serve everyone. This needs access control, per-user metering, and an etiquette for moving a finished car. Harder socially, cheaper electrically.

Model regulations increasingly expect new developments to make a share of parking EV-ready, commonly cited as 20% of slots. If your building is being planned or renovated, laying conduit now costs a fraction of retrofitting it later.

4. Basement safety, honestly

Basement charging is permitted, and it is where most society installations end up. The conditions are not exotic, but they are not optional:

• Protection at the point — MCB or RCBO, a Type A residual current device and surge protection, with a dedicated earthing arrangement.
• Cable routing that does not compromise fire compartments or obstruct escape routes.
• Mechanical protection for the unit and the cable where vehicles manoeuvre.
• An enclosure rating appropriate to the location, even indoors.

A committee is entitled to ask for evidence of all four before approving. A competent installer offers them without being asked.

5. Will the building take it?

Each 7.4 kW charger adds roughly 32 A, and in a society that load lands in the evening on top of the building's own peak — lifts, pumps, lighting and every flat's air conditioning.

Two facts make it manageable. First, residential charging is overnight and unhurried: a car home at 8 PM and leaving at 8 AM has twelve hours, so it never needs full power. Second, dynamic load management lets several chargers share a fixed ceiling, so the society decides how much capacity charging may ever draw and the equipment respects it.

Measuring the existing peak against the sanctioned load is the first thing a survey does, and it decides whether a load enhancement is needed at all.

6. What it costs, and who pays for it

Two separate questions. The equipment cost is market-standard; the cost-sharing is a committee decision.

In practice a resident usually funds their own point in an assigned bay, while shared infrastructure comes from the sinking fund or a per-user recovery. Neither is more correct — but deciding it in writing before the first installation stops the second one becoming a dispute.

7. What to bring to the committee meeting

• The society's sanctioned load and its measured evening peak.
• Whether parking is assigned or shared, and how many residents drive EVs today.
• A proposed cable route, and where the point would be protected.
• Which billing route is proposed — flat meter, society EV connection, or submeter.
• A written cost-sharing rule that will still work for the tenth resident.

A free site survey produces the first three on paper, which is usually what turns a circular argument into a decision.

8. Questions we get asked

Can our society legally refuse an EV charger?

A blanket refusal stands on weak ground. Section 43 of the Electricity Act, 2003 obliges the distribution licensee to supply on request and does not make society consent a precondition, and in January 2025 a division bench of the Bombay High Court found in favour of a resident's right to install. A society can still reasonably govern the cable route, the protection and the electrical load, because parking is common property. This is general information, not legal advice — take advice on your own bye-laws.

Who pays for the electricity?

Best practice is that the driver does. Either the charger runs off the resident's own flat meter, or the society takes a separate EV-tariff connection and recovers metered sessions through maintenance. An unmetered basement socket spreads one resident's fuel cost across every flat and reliably causes disputes.

Can a society take its own EV electricity connection?

Yes. The 2024 national guidelines specifically allow resident welfare associations and housing societies to request a separate metered connection from the distribution licensee on a dedicated EV tariff.

Is charging allowed in basement parking?

Yes, subject to safety: protection at the point including a Type A residual current device, correct earthing, cable routing that does not compromise fire compartments or escape routes, and mechanical protection where vehicles manoeuvre.

What if ten residents want chargers instead of one?

That is a load question rather than a legal one. Dynamic load management lets the chargers share a ceiling the society sets, and overnight parking means throttling costs nobody anything. Plan the electrical provision for the tenth resident when installing for the first.

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Sources for the figures on this page:

• Guidelines for Installation and Operation of EV Charging Infrastructure, 2024 — Ministry of Power
• Beyond the courts: why India needs a statutory right to charge — Down To Earth
• EV charging rules for residential societies, 2024–2026 — Savekar