Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday approved a draft notification that paves the way for the country to have its own crash-linked safety performance star rating system for cars.
The five star-rating system under the Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (Bharat- NCAP) will assign cars between one to five stars based on how well they perform in crash tests with zero star indicating lowest safety standards. The overall assessment is based on the performance of the vehicle under three broad categories- adult occupant protection, child occupant protection and safety assist technologies.
“Bharat-NCAP will serve as a consumer-centric platform allowing customers to opt for safer cars based upon their star-ratings, while promoting a healthy competition among OEMs in India to manufacture safer vehicles,” Mr. Gadkari tweeted. He said that such a move would not only ensure structural and passenger safety but also increase the export-worthiness of Indian automobiles, making the automobile industry “Aatmanirbhar with the mission of making India the number 1 automobile hub in the world.”
The scheme is not mandatory for manufacturers and models would be selected on the basis of their popularity (sale of minimum 30,000 units from the date of its introduction in the previous calendar year), or identified by the government in the interest of public safety and can also be voluntarily submitted by manufacturers. When a vehicle is selected based on its popularity, the base model would be selected and tested for rating.
“The Bharat NCAP will encourage vehicle manufacturers to compete with each other for better safety ratings. But it should be ensured that the Authority should be different from the government and should be derived from an association which is from insurance companies, consumer welfare groups, automobile industry, spare part manufacturers, etc,” said Rohit Baluja, President, Institute of Road Traffic Education.
