EXCLUSIVE| IEMI 2025: Odisha Slips To 8 Despite EV Growth; 2/100 Purchase Incentive Exposes Yawning Policy Gap in State

Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s electric vehicle transition has hit a strange stretch of road: the state is successfully building up its range, but its national position has slipped as competitors shift into a higher gear.

The second edition of the India Electric Mobility Index (IEMI) 2025), released by NITI Aayog Wednesday, has placed Odisha at No. 8 nationally with a composite score of 55, compared with rank 7 and a score of 49 in the 2024 edition. In other words, Odisha gained six points in absolute performance but lost one position because several competing States moved faster.

That is the first big takeaway.

The second – and more revealing – finding lies inside the 55-point score.

Odisha's Purchase Incentives indicator scores only 2 out of 100.

At the same time, the State scores 58 in Transport Electrification Progress, 57 in Charging Infrastructure Readiness and 45 in EV Research and Innovation. The result is a distinctly uneven EV ecosystem: Odisha has a growing market and improving charging readiness, but its demand-side fiscal support and innovation ecosystem remain relatively weak.

The rank fell. The EV ecosystem did not. So what happened?

This is where the IEMI 2025 numbers become important.

The index is not simply a count of how many EVs a State sold. It assesses 16 indicators under three themes:

IEMI 2025 theme	Weight

Odisha score

Transport Electrification Progress

50%

58

Charging Infrastructure Readiness

30%

57

EV Research & Innovation

20%

45

Overall IEMI

100%

55

The formula itself explains why Transport Electrification matters so much: it carries half of the total index. Charging infrastructure carries another 30%, while research and innovation account for 20%.

Therefore, weaknesses in consumer incentives, commercial EV adoption and the innovation ecosystem have a disproportionate effect on Odisha's final score.

The ₹1-per-capita problem

The most striking number in the entire Odisha profile is not its 55.

It is Rs1.

NITI Aayog's indicator table records Odisha's annual per-capita purchase incentive allocation at just Rs1, which translates into an indicator score of 2/100.

That is dramatically different from simply saying Odisha has no EV policy.

It does have policy support.

In fact, NITI Aayog identifies one of Odisha's policy features as an interest-free advance for government employees purchasing EVs. But that is a targeted benefit, rather than a broad-based purchase subsidy available across the consumer market.

And that distinction matters.

The IEMI's purchase-incentive indicator is specifically designed to measure financial incentives that reduce the upfront cost of EVs. NITI Aayog says this indicator is based on annual per-capita subsidy allocation and includes State subsidies and fee exemptions, while excluding tax exemptions.

So Odisha's 2/100 is not a measure of whether people like EVs. It is a measure of the State's direct financial demand-side support under the index methodology.

That is the policy gap exposed by IEMI 2025.

Yet Odisha is not a weak EV market

The irony is that the same report shows Odisha has considerable market momentum.

Its 2025 indicator values include:

• Private EV registration: 9%

• Commercial EV registration: 6%

• Governance initiatives: 3

• Purchase incentives: ₹1 per capita

• Transition initiatives: 1

• Operational support initiatives: 2

• Fuel-price parity: 20.2

The private EV registration outcome is therefore considerably stronger than the purchase-incentive policy score might suggest.

This creates Odisha's central EV paradox:

The market is moving faster than the State's direct consumer incentive architecture.

That is an important distinction. The IEMI data does not suggest that Odisha's EV transition has stalled. Rather, it suggests that consumer adoption has progressed without a correspondingly strong State-funded purchase incentive framework.

Commercial EVs are the other missing piece

The second major weakness is commercial electrification.

Odisha's commercial EV registration indicator scores only 18/100 in the index framework, even while private EV adoption is much stronger. The commercial gap matters because Transport Electrification Progress carries a 50% weight in the overall IEMI.

The report itself says Transport Electrification is the single largest opportunity for improvement nationally. Among large States, Odisha's theme score of 58 places it in the Frontrunner band, but Maharashtra leads the group at 68.

The contrast becomes sharper when the commercial market is examined.

Odisha's EV transition is not yet equally deep across private mobility, commercial fleets, freight and other high-utilisation segments.

That leaves a policy question for the State's next EV framework:

Can Odisha move from encouraging EV purchases to actively transforming commercial mobility?

Charging infrastructure: Odisha has improved sharply, but the denominator matters

This is the second major part of the story.

Odisha's Charging Infrastructure Readiness score has risen from 43 in IEMI 2024 to 57 in IEMI 2025. That is a substantial 14-point improvement.

But the underlying data tells a more complicated story.

Charging indicator	Odisha's 2025 position
Charger-to-vehicle ratio	7.9 per lakh vehicles
Capital subsidy for public charging	1 initiative
Charging infrastructure development initiatives	2
Building bye-laws	2
Renewable-energy generation capacity share	10.6%
Power availability deficit	0%

The 7.9 chargers per lakh vehicles is the raw indicator value. The corresponding normalised IEMI indicator score is what determines Odisha's performance in the index; it should not be confused with a literal 37 chargers per lakh vehicles.

This distinction is important because the State's EV fleet is growing.

As more electric vehicles enter the market, infrastructure must grow not merely in absolute numbers but faster enough to maintain charging availability relative to the vehicle base.

That is why the report uses the chargers-to-vehicles ratio, defined as public charging points per lakh registered vehicles.

The policy-versus-execution divide

Odisha does have a number of structural advantages.

Its charging framework includes provisions covering public charging capital support, charging-development initiatives and building bye-laws. The State's overall charging score has consequently risen to 57.

But the national comparison shows how quickly other States are moving.

Large State	IEMI 2025 score	Charging readiness	Transport electrification
Maharashtra	78	91	68
Karnataka	73	97	55
Tamil Nadu	61	73	48
Madhya Pradesh	59	48	62
Odisha	55	57	58
Andhra Pradesh	52	62	53
Haryana	51	91	19

The comparison produces an important analytical point: there is no single Indian EV model.

Haryana, for example, has extremely strong charging readiness but very low transport-electrification progress. Uttar Pradesh shows almost the reverse pattern. NITI Aayog specifically uses these contrasting cases to demonstrate that infrastructure and vehicle adoption are moving at different speeds across States.

Odisha's biggest missed opportunity may now be commercial mobility

The State's next jump in the index will therefore depend on more than adding charging points.

The IEMI data suggests three pressure points:

1. Consumer incentives:
The 2/100 purchase-incentive score leaves Odisha with a very small demand-side financial lever compared with States that provide stronger purchase support.

2. Commercial transition:
The 18/100 commercial EV adoption score shows that private consumer adoption has not translated proportionately into commercial fleet electrification.

3. Innovation:
Odisha's EV Research and Innovation score is only 45. NITI Aayog's large-State comparison shows Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu far ahead on this dimension, reflecting their deeper automotive, technology and startup ecosystems.

Why Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are pulling away

The national picture is changing rapidly.

Maharashtra scored 78 and Karnataka 73, the only two Large States to enter the Top Performer category. Tamil Nadu scored 61 and Madhya Pradesh 59. Odisha's 55 places it in the Frontrunner category alongside several other large States.

The difference is not simply about vehicle sales.

Karnataka leads the country in Charging Infrastructure Readiness with 97, while Maharashtra scores 91. Tamil Nadu scores 73. Odisha's 57 therefore leaves a substantial infrastructure gap even though the State has improved sharply from its 2024 score.

Research is another dividing line. Maharashtra scores 85, Karnataka 82 and Tamil Nadu 77 in EV Research and Innovation. NITI Aayog says research and innovation capacity remains concentrated in industrialised States and urban regions.

For Odisha, therefore, the next phase is not merely about getting more people to buy electric vehicles.

It is about creating an ecosystem around them.

And then came Madhya Pradesh

Perhaps the biggest warning for Odisha comes not from Maharashtra or Karnataka but from Madhya Pradesh.

MP jumped from 23rd in IEMI 2024 with a score of 31 to seventh in 2025 with a score of 59 -a gain of 16 positions. NITI Aayog attributes the rise to progress across multiple indicators, including policy, charging infrastructure and ecosystem development.

This explains why Odisha's six-point score improvement was not enough to preserve its earlier rank.

The race is no longer static.

A State can improve and still fall because another State has improved faster.

That is exactly what happened to Odisha.

The methodology itself changed – another reason to read the rank carefully

There is one important caveat.

IEMI 2025 is not an exact carbon copy of IEMI 2024.

NITI Aayog introduced separate categories for Large States, UTs and City States, and Hilly and Northeastern States. It also changed several data sources, including using BEE data for chargers, revised the fuel-price calculation to a 365-day average, moved policy scoring to a pro-rata basis depending on how long a policy was active, and renamed the charging metric from "EVs per EV charger" to "Chargers to Vehicles Ratio."

The index also uses both absolute and relative scoring. Private and commercial EV adoption, purchase incentives, fuel-price parity, chargers per lakh vehicles, renewable-energy share, power availability, startups and patents are relatively scored against other States and UTs.

Therefore, the movement from 7 to 8 should not be interpreted as a simple year-on-year deterioration in Odisha's EV ecosystem.

The State's score actually rose from 49 to 55.

The rank slipped because the competitive field changed – and because the methodology itself was refined.

What NITI Aayog is effectively telling Odisha

The report's recommendations for Odisha are unusually clear.

It calls for:

• EV conversion-kit subsidies

• Reserved EV parking

• Low-emission zones

• Enhanced purchase subsidies

• Reduced electricity tariffs for public charging

• A single-window system for charging infrastructure

• R&D centres for skill development

That list is revealing.

It suggests Odisha's next EV policy challenge is not necessarily to invent another ambitious 2030 target.

It is to close the implementation gap between the target and the consumer, the charger and the commercial fleet.

The Odisha EV paradox in one table

What Odisha is doing well	Where the index exposes a gap
Overall score rose 49 → 55	National rank slipped 7 → 8
Transport Electrification 58	Purchase incentives only 2/100
Charging Readiness 57	Charger-to-vehicle ratio remains a constraint
Private EV registration 9%	Commercial EV registration only 6%
Governance initiatives score strongly	Direct consumer fiscal support remains limited
Interest-free EV advance for government employees	Benefit does not represent a broad consumer subsidy
Charging framework has improved	Infrastructure must keep pace with a growing EV base
R&D initiatives exist	EV innovation score remains 45

What this means for Odisha

The IEMI 2025 verdict is therefore more nuanced than "Odisha falls in EV ranking."

The real story is:

Odisha's EV market is advancing, but its policy architecture is not advancing uniformly across demand incentives, commercial electrification, charging density and innovation.

The State has moved from 49 to 55, enough to enter the IEMI's Frontrunner band, and its charging-readiness score has risen sharply.

But the 2/100 purchase-incentive score is now impossible to ignore.

So is the 18/100 commercial EV adoption score.

And while Odisha has improved, the national field is moving rapidly. Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa occupy the top four positions, while Madhya Pradesh's dramatic rise shows how quickly the leaderboard can change.

For Odisha, the next IEMI battle will therefore not be won simply by selling more electric two-wheelers.

It will depend on whether the State can turn EV policy into a broader consumer incentive system, electrify commercial mobility, expand chargers in proportion to the vehicle fleet and convert its R&D initiatives into an actual EV innovation ecosystem.

That is the gap between 55 today and the next level of electric mobility tomorrow.
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