Thursday, February 11, 2021
By Manoj Kumawat
Auto Makers Cannot Sale Vehicles With Low-Quality Safety Features
The government of India has urged the car manufacturers to stop the practice of integrating low-quality safety features in their vehicles intentionally. According to government sources, it is an ‘inexcusable’ practice and should be controlled strictly. The concern by this was expressed by Mr Giridhar Aramane, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH), in a seminar organized by the SIAM to encourage the practice of safe driving. Addressing the seminar Mr Aramane said, "I am deeply perturbed by some news items that Indian models are purposefully downgraded by auto manufacturers' safety standards in India. This practise needs to be stopped.”
According to him, the auto manufacturers are responsible for manufacturing the vehicles enriched with high-quality safety features, they cannot protect themselves from manufacturing the vehicles with low-quality features. Doing this is an unpardonable habit. In his words, maybe the automakers must get their vehicles to receive high-rating in the safety tests, he suggested that automakers should let the customers know about the benefits of safety features offered in the vehicle they are buying. It would be important to know that in recent years most of the vehicles sold in the Indian car market have failed in scoring high-rating in the safety tests conducted by the Global NCAP agency.
Comparing the number of deaths on roads in the US and India, he said that in 2018, 36, 560 deaths were recorded out of 45 lakh accidents. Whereas in India, out of 4.5 lakh road accidents 1.5 lakh people died, which is the matter of concern, despite the less number of road accidents. Addressing the auto manufacturers he said that if they are concerned about the patents of the safety measures introduced by them, he gave the illustration of Nils Bohlin, the Swedish Engineer. Illustrating him, Aramane said, "The reason why the seat belt is adopted so quickly is because Volvo shared the patent and Mr Bolin also shared the patent for all part manufacturers to be used in their design. The significance of such measures shall not be lost on auto industry majors working in India."
Speaking about the use of VLT system with CCTV camera by insurance agencies, he said, "Auto manufacturers can also provide emergency care in vehicular systems." "We have already mandated establishment of data centres in all states and UTs so that the messages can be received at control centres and emergency care be dispatched to the location of the vehicle."
According to him, it will prove to be a beneficial step for the vehicles running on the Indian roads. With the introduction of the new system, the vehicles have to pay low toll charges and also it will help in controlling the leakages in the system used for the collection of toll charges, due to GPS used for looking after it.
