India's EV transition is turning into an industrial procurement story that goes well beyond car and scooter manufacturing. Battery gigafactories, cell plants, pack-assembly facilities and energy-storage projects are moving from announcements into construction and commissioning — pulling in demand for infrastructure, equipment, materials and engineering services along the way.

For contractors, EPC firms and suppliers, this is worth watching: work is opening up in civil construction, electrical infrastructure, HVAC, clean rooms, automation, machinery, logistics, fire safety, water treatment and recycling. The opportunity isn't just in tenders labelled "battery" or "EV" — it's in the whole procurement ecosystem building up around these projects.

A New Procurement Market, Built on the PLI Scheme

The Government of India has been backing domestic battery manufacturing through the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) storage — a ₹18,100 crore push to build 50 GWh of domestic ACC capacity.

As of mid-2026, 40 GWh has been awarded to four beneficiaries, with reported investments of roughly ₹5,180 crore. None of the PLI incentives have been claimed yet — a sign that most plants are still under construction or working through commissioning rather than producing at scale.

The awarded projects, approximately: Ola Cell Technologies (20 GWh, Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu), Reliance New Energy Battery Ltd (10 GWh, Jamnagar, Gujarat), Reliance New Energy Battery Storage Ltd (5 GWh, Gujarat), and ACC Energy Storage Pvt Ltd, a Rajesh Exports JV (5 GWh, Karnataka).

In July 2026, the Ministry of Heavy Industries invited global bids for another 10 GWh of ACC capacity, earmarked for grid-scale stationary storage — the final tranche of the 50 GWh PLI programme.

A gigafactory needs a lot more than cell-production lines. Long before a plant makes its first battery, someone has to develop the land, put up the buildings, run the utilities, and wire the power and environmental systems — each its own layer of procurement.

Major Projects Worth Tracking

Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana (spilling into Andhra Pradesh) are shaping up as India's core battery manufacturing hubs.

Agratas (Tata Group), Sanand, Gujarat — a cell plant widely reported at 40 GWh, meant to supply EVs and stationary storage. Construction has cleared several milestones, with teams now preparing for manufacturing readiness.

Amara Raja Energy & Mobility, Giga Corridor (Telangana/Andhra Pradesh) — an integrated corridor covering cell manufacturing and pack production. Its 5 GWh ACC project targets commissioning around FY 2026–27 and has reached the customer-qualification stage.

Exide Energy Solutions, Bengaluru, Karnataka — a 12 GWh lithium-ion cell facility being built in phases , on top of the pack and cell operations Exide already runs in the state.

Each is less a single construction job than its own tender ecosystem, throwing off procurement needs across dozens of categories.

Where the Tenders Actually Show Up

Battery-related work rarely gets tagged "battery" or "EV" on tender portals. It shows up under the broader industrial category it belongs to:

A contractor who only searches "battery tender" will miss most of this. The real openings sit under electrical works, HVAC, civil construction and machinery — not the label you'd expect.

Civil, Power and HVAC Come First

Before a gigafactory produces a cell, someone has to break ground — buildings, warehouses, roads and specialised flooring, pulling in EPC contractors and subcontractors alike. This shows up under industrial construction, rarely under "EV," which is why category-based tracking beats keyword searching at this stage.

Power comes next. Battery manufacturing needs a sophisticated internal distribution setup: substations (11/33 kV and above), transformers, switchgear, HT/LT panels and cabling — worth watching through electricity utilities and industrial development authorities, since related tenders tend to surface well before a factory is near production.

Lithium-ion cell production also has a requirement that's easy to overlook: tight environmental control. Humidity and temperature need to stay within narrow bounds during electrode and cell manufacturing, making dry rooms, dehumidification and filtration a specialised, fairly lucrative slice of the build.

Automation, and Beyond EV Batteries

Modern battery plants also run on automation: robotic assembly systems, PLC/SCADA process control, machine-vision and sensor systems, and production-line testing equipment. As domestic manufacturing scales, local engineering firms should get more of a look-in here.

The July 2026 tender from the Ministry of Heavy Industries signals where things are heading — 10 GWh of ACC capacity aimed at grid-scale stationary storage rather than EVs, run as a two-stage QCBS process through the Central Public Procurement Portal, with documents released 15 July 2026 and bids closing 13 October 2026. As renewable capacity grows, future procurement is likely to lean more into storage, not just batteries for cars.

The story doesn't end once a battery leaves the factory, either. As India's EV fleet ages, collection, dismantling, recycling and material recovery become their own procurement cycle — reverse logistics, material handling, shredders and chemical-processing infrastructure.

States to Watch, and Where the Value Is

Gujarat has Agratas in Sanand and Reliance's ACC facilities in Jamnagar. Karnataka has Exide's 12 GWh project near Bengaluru. Tamil Nadu has Ola's 20 GWh plant in Krishnagiri. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have Amara Raja's Giga Corridor. Tracking by geography can matter as much as by keyword — authorities and utilities around these clusters often put out their own tenders for roads, electricity, water and logistics.

The broader lesson: procurement intelligence needs to connect a known project to the tenders it eventually produces. Nobody finds their opportunity by searching "gigafactory tender" — it's more likely listed as an electrical installation job or an HVAC package. A platform adds value by tracking known projects, surfacing tenders by category and location, monitoring key developers (Tata/Agratas, Ola, Reliance, Exide, Amara Raja), and watching for keywords like "dry room," "substation" and "battery recycling." This matters most for MSMEs, since a single gigafactory can spin off subcontracting work that dwarfs the primary EPC contract in sheer number of opportunities.

India's battery sector has moved past the announcement stage — factories under construction, qualification lines being commissioned, capacity stretching into stationary storage as well as EVs. The companies that spot these tenders early will have a real head start. Don't search only for battery tenders — track the whole supply chain around them.