Government Mulling Star Ratings For New Passenger Cars

The Central government is contemplating introducing a new system wherein each new car has a star rating based on its safety features. This was shared in the Lok Sabha on August 11, 2016 by the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Pon Radhakrishnan. He said that the government is reviewing the proposal of Bharat NCAP – a star rating programme for new passenger cars based on safety performance. He added, “Several Indian cars got poor star ratings in the crash test performed under global new car assessment programme conducted by Global NCAP, which is an international voluntary organisation working in the interest of consumers”.

The programme will be injected into the system in different phases. While the common testing ground for Bharat NCAP is built, the programme will be implemented on a voluntary basis by the car manufacturers. This means that initially, the carmakers will rate the safety performance for their fleet of new launches. The rating system will cover several aspects revolving around the safety of passengers, like offset frontal crash, side impact crash, child safety requirements, pedestrian safety requirements, anti-skid brakes and seat-belt reminder. Once tested by the manufacturer itself, a star rating will be given to the car based on the norms that will be defined by the governing body Bharat NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme). Once the testing facility is up and running for Bharat NCAP, all the cars will go through the same safety checks and the same will be carried out the governing body itself.

Earlier this year in May 2016, at the Indian Automobile Safety Conference in support of #SaferCarsforIndia, AV Mannikar, senior deputy director at ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) shared, “Bharat NCAP will be more broad-based than any other NCAP at the time of introduction. It was proposed that for some time the regulations of the programme will remain same as the standard NCAP guidelines implemented around the globe”. This conference was co-hosted by Global NCAP and Institute of Road Traffic Management.

Bharat NCAP will be implemented from October 2017 for new car models. However, come 2019, all the car models will be covered under the same programme.