Car Crash Test Facility Being Built, India Soon To Have Norms

Keeping road safety in mind, India will soon have crash test norms for passenger cars. This step was taken to reduce the number of fatalities due to road accidents.

The new norms will be aligned with international safety standards of vehicles, making sure vehicles here are equipped with several safety features, airbags being the most important one.

Pon Radhakrishnan, the Road Transport and Highways Minister told the Rajya Sabha that the government is ready to make frontal and side impact crash test a must.

The required test facility is being built under the National Automotive Testing and Research and Development Infrastructure Project.

The Minister said, "To meet these regulations, majority of car manufacturers will be required to use several safety devices, including air bags."

Under consultation from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the government will generate a consensus on the issue. SIAM is also a member of the standing committee for the Central Motor Vehicles Rules.

All these drastic measures to ensure safety was taken after Global New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), tested the Maruti Suzuki Swift and the Datsun GO for safety standards and both the cars failed miserably.

Vishnu Mathur, the Director General of SIAM still defends the manufacturers lack of safety in the vehicles saying, "Every country has its own safety requirements. Our cars are meeting the norms stipulated by the Indian government."