National Automotive Board expected to set up by year end

The Department of Heavy Industry is taking steps to bring out some alternative ways to deal with the slow down in the Indian car market. The turover of the Indian car industry is approximately USD 75 billion, with its export sector to be around USD 11 billion.

A concerned board is likely to be set up by the end of this year. The National Automotive Board or the NAB is to be a dedicated council to deal with the strategies to overcome as well as find remedies to stop market failures. NAB is actually a node of the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project or NATRIP, which is a project implementation group. The NATRIP is set up to approve new auto testing and R&D centres as well as improve the existing centers.

As per a higher personnel from the Department of Heavy Industry, a group named as the National Automotive Board is likely to be set up. NAB shall actually be a bridge between the government and the heavy industry which will direct as well as supervise the smooth and stable research and development activities along with that they will also promote skilled labour for the automobile segment. It may also work as a suggestion maker for the government to make them aware of the needs and the required strategies to increase the awareness and requirements of electric automobiles and hybrid vehicles.

The National Automotive Board may constitute members from the Department of Heavy Industry, Planning Commission and various other ministries such as, roads and highways transport, science and technology and environment and forests. There shall also be a bench of scientists and industry representatives included in NAB.

NATRIP was up held for upgrading three testing and R&D departments, the Vehicle Research and Development Establishment (VRDE) at Ahmednagar, Automotive Research Association of India ( ARAI) at Pune and International Centre for Automotive Technology ( ICAT) at Manesar. For automotive testing, homologation and R&D, NATRIP was to set up four greenfield organizations at Chennai, Indore, Rai Bareilly and Silchar.