The story so far: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has rolled out an indigenous star-rating system for crash testing cars under which vehicles will be assigned between one to five stars indicating their safety in a collision. Called the Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), the rating system will be voluntary and will come into effect from October 1, 2023.
What is Bharat NCAP?
Under the Bharat NCAP, cars voluntarily nominated by automobile manufacturers will be crash tested as per protocols laid down in the soon-to-be-published Automotive Industry Standard 197. The programme is applicable to passenger vehicles with not more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat with gross vehicle weight not exceeding 3,500 kgs. Only the base model of a particular variant will be tested.