Union Minister for Road and Highways approved draft notification for Bharat New Car Assessment Programme
Bharat New Car Assessment Programme
- Bharat-NCAP will serve as a consumer-centric platform allowing customers to opt for safer cars based on their star-ratings, while promoting healthy competition among OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in India to manufacture safer vehicles.
- Bharat NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme), which will provide star ratings to vehicles based on their performance in crash tests
- Factors deciding star rating
- The Bharat NCAP authority will also host the safety ratings of all new car models on a website for public knowledge, which will be based on three vehicle features
- Adult Occupant Protection (AOP)
- Child Occupant Protection ( COP)
- Safety Assist Technologies (SAT)
- The Bharat NCAP authority will also host the safety ratings of all new car models on a website for public knowledge, which will be based on three vehicle features
- Bharat NCAP Testing
- Bharat NCAP testing protocol is aligned with global procedures.
- At the same time, existing Indian regulations factored in.
- The end result allows OEMs to test vehicles in the country’s in-house testing facilities.
Need of the Programme
- The number of deaths due to road accidents in India is around three to four times that of European countries like France, Germany and Spain.
- India has seen more road deaths per year than any other nation since 2006, costing lives at the rate of 230,000 annually.
- The Indian automotive safety standards have criticized as being insufficient and ineffective.
- India has the world’s sixth-largest car market, but is still the only country among the global top ten car markets without a testing program that measures the safety of vehicles.
- It is estimated that vehicles in India will cost 8–15% more resulting from compliance with these norms.
- However, harmonizing India’s vehicle safety standards with global standards is expected to help automakers export locally produced cars globally.
Earlier Testing Programs
- So far manufacturers conducted crash tests on a voluntary basis at their research labs or would send the cars to independent agencies (third party) like Global NCAP in the UK to get the star ratings.
Global NCAP (National Car Assessment Program)
- The Global NCAP (National Car Assessment Program) basically assesses the safety of the car on a global standard following a collision.
- The Global NCAP (National Car Assessment Program) runs crash tests for all the car models across the globe
- The crash tests focus on the structure of the body of the car, primarily the frontal and the sides of the car and also assess the protection of the car for adults as well as children.
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Content Source: New Indian Express