NAB to be set up in India to recall impaired cars

Probably the recent Tata Nano fire-catching incidents have shaken the safety agencies in India. Even the No. 1 car maker Maruti India and Honda India recalled some of their models in recent past to mend the defects cropped up in them. So, the government will now set up a safety agency called National Automotive Board that will enjoy the power to recall cars suffering from engineering defects. Engineering defects in most new-generation cars have been on the rise in recent years, raising safety concerns for consumers. India witnesses the highest number of road mishap in the world and the absence of an authority has failed to check the rise in such incidents.

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Around 1.42 lakh people died in 2009 because of driver negligence and defective vehicles, according to data. Albeit car makers call back their ailing vehicles but there was no official scrutiny on them as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the US. Ambuj Sharma, Joint Secretary of Department of Heavy Industries informed that the government is contemplating a national-level body that will govern the technical and safety aspects in the fast-growing sector that is expected to double in the next five years. The National Automotive Board, which is not yet activated, will be a single-window authority overseeing the country's automobile industry. The NAB will address safety issues ranging from crash-testing of yet-to-be launched models to certification of all types of vehicles.

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NAB would also look at commercial vehicles, though recalls in this segment are rare. In the past there have been cases where car makers, as in the case with Maruti 800, have re-engineered their sold cars but in the absence of any statutory mechanism or policies, the company stopped short of calling the exercise as a "recall". Even Honda India announced that it would carry out preventive part replacement of Power Window Switch in 72,115 units of 2nd Generation Honda City cars, manufactured in 2005 to 2007. In developed markets like Europe, Japan and the US, all the tests-be it frontal or side impact, are mandatory and these tests were supposed to be implemented in India by 2012, but these have been further delayed to beyond 2014 now.

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