Maruti Suzuki Launches BS-VI Compliant Dzire — Prices Start Rs 5.82 Lakh

With new safety norms coming into effect from 1 July 2019, automobile manufacturers in the country are updating their fleets to meet the new requirements. And additional safety equals added costs. Mahindra recently announced a price hike of up to Rs 36,000 across all its models because of this.

Another India based car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India is in the process of upgrading safety features on their cars. Earlier this week, the company upgraded the Swift and the WagonR. They have revealed today, that the new Dzire is now AIS-145 compliant.

Maruti has also announced the launch of the BS-VI compliant Dzire petrol. Prices of the BS-VI compliant vehicle range between Rs 5.82 lakh and Rs 9.57 lakh, ex-showroom (India), which means a hike of Rs 15,000.

Powering the Dzire are the same set of engines – a 1.2-liter petrol, and a 1.3-liter diesel. The diesel engine has not been upgraded to BS-VI norms, and will finish it's run on 31 March 2020.

In a move towards making cars safer and to reduce the number of road accidents, the Union Road Transport Ministry has brought in these new set of mandatory safety features.

The new safety features which are now mandatory across all vehicles irrespective of their variants and trims, are - airbags, seat belt reminders, speed alert systems, reverse parking sensors, central locking, ABS and EBD (which are now offered as standard).

While top of the line variants feature these safety nets, base variants do not. The new safety norm ensure that all cars now feature the necessary safety.

The additional safety features make the cars compliant with AIS-145 Safety Norms (Automotive Industry Standards).
Outside of these safety features, all cars retailed in India will have to be BNVSAP (Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program) compliant. The BNVSAP norms come in to effect from 1 October 2019. This means that the cars will have to undergo structural changes after which they will be put through crash tests prior to being approved for sale in India.