The BL Interview. India needs stricter vehicle recall rules, must invest in R&D: Natrip CEO

Recall of food products due to the presence of high level of lead, pesticides in fizzed soft drinks and contaminated bottled water have brought back the focus on the need for a mandatory recall policy for vehicles, which India does not have. It is only proposed in the Road Transport and Safety Bill, which is yet to see light of the day.

The National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (Natrip), which has a mandate to build a network of testing and researchinfrastructure, shares various perspectives on the regulatory framework required for vehicles. In an interview to BusinessLine , Nitin Gokarn, CEO, Natrip, spoke of the regulatory regime to monitor the quality of products sold in the market. Edited excerpts:

Where does India stand in maintaining and monitoring the quality of vehicles used in the transportation segment?

Before 1988, there was no Motor Vehicle Act. It was only in the early 1990s, after liberalisation and as car manufacturers started opening up factories, that we started aligning ourselves to the European framework of rules.

But, first we need to define each parameter and it requires a lot of research. For instance, should the speed limit for Indian roads be 80 kmph or 40 kmph? When a crash study is done, at what speed should the vehicles be travelling?

Unfortunately, we mirror what’s done abroad without enough studies. We need good, standard studies to arrive at agreed levels of parameters for our country.

The current Motor Vehicle Act does not have a vehicle recall policy. A few years ago, when the Ministry started working on vehicle recall scheme, SIAM suggested voluntary recalls. And there have been several voluntary recalls. The voluntary recall system came under scanner with the GM Motor’s Tavera incident two years ago.

How is the Indian regulatory space different from that which exists in the developed world?

Policy making in the US and Europe is supported by research bodies with expertise based on years on research.

Their regulatory bodies have people researching for years, say only on lights or tyres or brakes. Same is the case with emissions.

What is the acceptable level of particulate matter in a country? While we are talking BS V, Europe is talking of advanced emission levels such as BS VI.

There is a constant battle of the regulations with emerging technologies.

The need to have existing standards, re-evaluating them with emerging technologies and developing expertise in specific areas is required.

This is particularly true for developing countries such as China, Brazil and India, which are the growth markets for the auto sector. The Western markets are not seeing any sharp growth.

While Brazil is mainly taking the ethanol route, China has invested a lot in developing research and development.

China insists upon all foreign multinationals to co-opt or have a joint venture with a state owned enterprise, or with a private entity, in which some government entity has a stake to take care of the public good or policy perspective.

For instance, most Indian manufacturers have to go to the drawing board to improve crash-worthiness of their vehicles, which require higher investments resulting in costlier vehicles, which involves a public policy question also.

Given that India is one of the fastest growing automobile markets, in the context of the recent study for the Gurgaon-Jaipur stretch, which showed that the vehicle users receive most grievous injuries, what are the most basic system that should be in place?

At a macro level, we need several regulations, we need testing facilities that have to be completed, and have the test results in public domain.

We should also have common crash test facilities, so that all vehicles get tested there. We have to start looking at heavy duty vehicles, particularly commercial vehicles, from an emission perspective.

In general, more focus is required on vehicle safety in buses. We also need to improve our sample collection methodology – the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) in the US picks samples from vehicles on the roads to test. We follow more of the European system, but we should at least have a hybrid of the systems and at least test vehicles from the dealer points.

Unfortunately, we do not have a regulatory body yet with all these monitoring facilities in place.

A few years ago, a Road Ministry study had called for annual inspection and certification centres and had arrived at the need to have 1100 centres, with each such centre costing ₹12-15 crore.

These can be developed on a PPP basis like in Punjab and Rajasthan, apart from fixing standards for equipment to be used for testing.

This would also lead to India having an end-of-life regime, and help identify vehicles not fit to run.

The whole recycling ecosystem will develop as vehicles have high quality steel, copper and rare-earth metals, many of which will find buyers. This will result in safer roads as well.

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