The Global NCAP report last week red-flagged several of India's popular cars for having inadequate body-shells and absence of frontal airbags, and gave them a zero rating on safety standards.But, the auto industry has hit back, led by Maruti Suzuki, which raised questions of a possible conflict of interest between what the Brussels-based organisation seeks to do for 'passenger safety' and its principal partners.
RC Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki, questioned the testing agency's sponsors. "Look at the guys who are sponsoring them: AutoLiv, Denso. These companies make airbags," he said.Bhargava's question comes in light of the fact that NCAP's 'Stop the Crash' programme launched last year in Brazil had some of the world's leading airbags and airbag technology providers as its key partners, that together account for a lion's share of the global market.AutoLiv, for instance, is a Swedish airbag maker which alone enjoys a near 40 percent market share and is one of the key partners for the initiative.
Continental, another leading global component maker that produces safety control units for air bags and Denso too are part of the campaign.
Even Bosch that develops critical sensors that are essential for release of airbags and ZF-TRW are partners for the campaign.
But David Ward, Secretary General, Global NCAP, rubbished the allegations as "baseless charges" and said the auto industry "should concentrate on improving safety and not spinning such conspiracy theories."
Global NCAP maintains that there are clear firewalls between the said 'Stop the Crash' initiative and its core crash testing methods.
"We have clear firewalls between our core testing and Stop the Crash… companies are trying to mislead everyone," Ward said.
While initiatives like Stop the Crash campaign may indeed be completely separate from NCAP's core crash testing, but the separation may look less obvious to outsiders.
According to a Reuters report from last year, global airbag makers are gearing up for high growth in India where they are expected to grow 11 percent to USD 2 billion by 2020 outpacing China's 9 percent growth. Not bad for an industry which is otherwise pegged to grow around 8 percent in rest of the world.
The higher growth is primarily on account of India formally adopting the Bharat NCAP standards from October 2017 - which will make it mandatory for all new cars to meet frontal crash tests standards at 56 kilometres/per hour. The new norms by the government have been finalized after consultations.
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