The state-of-the-art automotive design and testing centres across seven cities in the country are being set up as per global standards by the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP) will be fully operational by December 2016.
A total of seven such facilities are coming up at Manesar, Bangalore, Rai Bareli, Silchar, Indore, Pune and Chennai under NATRiP for carrying out all safety tests including frontal and side crash test for vehicles. The Road Transport Ministry has set October 2017 as the deadline for mandatory crash test for new models and October 2019 for existing cars. The high speed testing track is being developed at Indore centre and will be fully operational within next couple of years.
CEO of the NATRiP Sanjay Bandopadhyay said that Road Transport and Highways Ministry (MoRTH) has made it mandatory for vehicle manufactures in the country especially cars for complying with best international standards for safety of driver and passengers for new vehicles.
“With new testing facilities and new safety norms coming, vehicles will become safer and country will be able to formulate new norms for crash test, emissions and other safety equipment like brakes, stability, noise and electro-magnetic radiations. Since most of our vehicle manufacturers were drawn from Europe and were the earliest in the industry, we have followed their method of testing for prototypes and the subsequent COP. The UN minimum standards of safety regulations are common, so we adhere to them,” Bandopadhyay said at a seminar on road safety jointly organised by MoRTH and International Road Federation (IRF).
Speaking on the occasion IRF chief K K Kapila said that the automobile industry should rise to the occasion. “When they can export safe cars to other countries, why can’t they do so for our customers. They should market their safety features for higher sale of products,” he added.