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Shillong, Oct. 31 — Cherrapunjee, one of Meghalaya’s most popular tourist destinations, is getting a fast EV charging station this November. The project comes from Guwahati-based A Plus Charge, a charging-network operator that is building a corridor-focused setup across India’s Northeast. The new station is part of the company’s Northeast Electric Vehicle Highway (NEEV) program and is meant to give electric-car drivers a dependable stop on the route through Shillong and onward to Cherrapunjee.
A Plus Charge already runs a charging facility in Shillong. Adding a second Meghalaya site at Cherrapunjee will create two useful anchor points for anyone driving from the Assam capital to the state’s southern tourist belt. The move also helps close a gap that has made long-distance EV travel awkward in this part of the country: fast chargers are still scarce outside the main cities.
The operator said it has commissioned ten new charging stations in the Northeast in the last few months. Another 28 are either ready for deployment or under construction. The active network now stretches from Siliguri and Guwahati to Dibrugarh, Shillong and Agartala. A Plus Charge is also planning to enter Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
The regional footprint matters because the Northeast’s geography makes charging planning different from the rest of India. Highways are often winding, distances between towns can be long, and weather conditions can be unforgiving. A network built only around city centers will not convince drivers to switch to EVs for inter-city travel.
Cherrapunjee is not just a scenic halt; it is one of India’s best-known destinations for waterfalls, living-root bridges and mountain views. Visitors often travel there as a day trip from Shillong, and a public charger gives EV owners the confidence to make that journey without worrying about the return leg.
From Guwahati, the drive to Cherrapunjee typically takes several hours over mountain roads. A round trip can easily cover 300 kilometers. For many electric cars currently sold in India, that is close to the edge of their real-world range. A fast charger at the destination effectively expands the driver’s options: charge before heading back or top up after arriving. That simple change can turn a leisure trip from a risk into a routine.
The station should also help tourists arriving from other states with an electric vehicle. Until now, a single fast charger in Shillong was the main public option for the southern Meghalaya area. The Cherrapunjee unit will extend a more reliable charging corridor nearer to the Bangladesh border region, where tourism infrastructure is still growing.
A Plus Charge has chosen a local-ownership model. In simple terms, the person who owns the land or the business can also own the charger. Hotels, restaurants, highway stops and private property owners can host a station, while A Plus Charge manages day-to-day operations, maintenance and technology.
This model matters for rural and semi-urban India because it does not wait for a large utility or a wealthy investor to build every site. It gives local businesses a way to earn from the EV transition and gives the charging company a lighter capital footprint.
“The Northeast’s EV build-out will move faster when the people who already run the region’s highway stops have a stake in it,” said Samyak Jain, founder of A Plus Charge.
The company, which is part of the clean-energy firm AlternatEV, is already an authorized charge point operator in Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura. Its chargers are designed to serve a wide range of electric vehicles, from two-wheelers to electric buses.
A Plus Charge also referenced the Ministry of Heavy Industries’ PM E-DRIVE scheme. That program can cover 80 percent of the capital expenditure needed for public charging stations, though projects must pass government checks and feasibility reviews. For an operator working in a region with comparatively low charging demand today, such support lowers the risk of building ahead of need.
The subsidy alone will not make every station profitable from day one. But it helps with the equipment, installation and grid-connection costs that make rural charging stations harder to justify. That fits the company’s broader goal of building a large network before vehicle numbers catch up.
For U.S. readers of the global EV infrastructure space, the Cherrapunjee project is an interesting comparison point. Many U.S. rural charging efforts rely on state agencies, utilities and federal grant programs to install hardware and guarantee uptime. A Plus Charge is taking a lighter, more local route: decentralizing station ownership while centralizing operations. It is too early to say whether this model will match the reliability of a more standardized state-managed corridor, but it does lower the barrier for small businesses to take part.
The approach could be especially useful in regions where tourism is seasonal and charging demand is concentrated on weekends and holidays. A local hotel owner has a stronger reason to keep a charger in service than an outside operator that sees only a small monthly usage report.
A fast charger in Cherrapunjee will succeed only if it stays online. The area is famous for heavy rainfall, so weatherproofing and routine maintenance are basic requirements. The company did not share hardware details in its announcement, but its operational model seems designed for local upkeep: the station owner has a direct financial stake, which often means problems get reported and fixed faster.
Grid reliability is another question. DC fast chargers draw significant power, and a small tourist town may need distribution upgrades. A Plus Charge has not disclosed utility arrangements, but high-power equipment at a remote site always requires coordination with the electricity provider.
A Plus Charge has set a target of establishing 1,000 public DC fast-charging stations across the Northeast by 2030. The company has also talked about helping the region reach 50 percent EV penetration. Those are bold goals for an area where charging infrastructure is still young.
For now, the immediate milestone is Cherrapunjee in November. If the station opens on time and operates reliably, it will signal that this part of the Northeast is ready to move beyond city-center charging. The 28 further stations in the pipeline will then decide whether A Plus Charge can turn its corridor strategy into a genuinely regional network.
