MAHA India hopes for clear roadmap for vehicle I&C process

MAHA India Automotive Testing Equipment Pvt. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of MAHA Maschinenbau Haldenwang GmbH & Co. KG., a premium German automotive testing equipment manufacturer, is known for its state-of-the-art safety and performance testing products for vehicle evaluation. The company has been operational in the Indian market since 2010, waiting for the right policies and regulations for vehicle testing, inspection and certification to come into effect.

Maha-India-Rengarajan
Mr. Rengarajan, Director, MAHA India

Says Mr. Rengarajan, Director, MAHA India: “The inspection and certification (I&C) process for vehicles – commercial trucks, buses, taxis and 3-wheelers – has to be implemented throughout the country. The current practice for vehicle fitness testing and certification is an age-old one and emission testing are not conducted properly. The entire vehicle fitness testing procedure including emission testing has to be automated and online information should be made available for the road transport authorities.”

Being a market leader in vehicle testing equipment, MAHA has a dominant market share in the field in most of the countries where I&C centres function effectively. Once the loopholes are plugged and vehicle I&C becomes standardized in India, MAHA India is confident of emerging the preferred supplier of equipment for both Government bodies and private players who are involved in the implementation. The company is also excited about the prospective positive consequences of a strong and foolproof I&C system would have on the auto industry and the country’s economy.

“Once the I&C of vehicles is regulated, our sales will increase and we will have a good chunk of business here. But it would also mean that all vehicles on the roads have to be serviced and maintained well, so the emission levels will be brought down, use of spurious parts will reduce and safety levels will be much better due to lesser accidents. Overall, it will bring in a whole new dimension to the country’s economy”, shares Mr. Rengarajan.

For setting up I&C centres in different parts of the country, land would be the most expensive commodity, followed by the building and then management of the actual operations over the long-term. In order to ensure the entire project is executed fairly without hassle, he feels a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model would be most ideal: “The right approach for this would be a PPP mode wherein the implementation should be privatized – ideally give to two or three players per State so that it can be supervised by the Government using the homologation bodies such as ARAI, ICAT, CIRT, etc., who have the know-how”.

Replying to a question on his company’s 2020 Vision, the Director concludes: “For MAHA India, 2020 is not a target. For us, it is about the implementation of I&C centres and since it a policy-driven subject, that’s where our focus and targets lie.”

Though the new Motor Vehicles Act passed in August includes a mention about the opening of new automated I&C centres to introduce strict fitness regime for motor vehicles, we have to wait and watch whether the implementation is done in the right way within agreeable timelines.