Reimburse total cost to car-owners for faulty designs:ParPanel

To prevent malpractices by automakers, there may be provisions to compensate the owner of the vehicle suitably or reimburse the total cost in case of faulty designs, a parliamentary panel today recommended.
"The Committee thinks that the owner of vehicles may also be compensated suitably and the manufacturer may reimburse the total cost of vehicle to its owner, if the vehicle is found faulty," Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture said in its report on Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2016 tabled today.
The 31-member panel chaired by Mukul Roy termed the clause for recall of vehicles as one of the most important amendments saying it speaks about recalling of vehicles which may cause harm to environment and may be risky for its occupants including driver and other road users.

"The Committee hopes that inclusion of this section (clause 38) will go a long way in curbing the malpractices by the manufacturers," it said.
It recommended that the section may be implemented or invoked whenever required without favouring anyone and provision of penalty on manufacturers may be imposed if running of defective vehicles has caused harm to the environment.
Clause 38 in the proposed Bill seeks to insert sections 110 A and 110 B in the Motor Vehicles Act.

"Section 110 A seeks to empower the central government to recall vehicles which do not meet standards and for making rules in this behalf. And section 110 B seeks to provide for issue of type-approved certificates and the establishment and regulation of testing agencies for testing of motor vehicles," the report said.

The amendments would ensure quality of vehicles as there has been several instances in which cars had to be recalled for faulty designs.
Last month, Japanese auto major Honda announced to recall 41,580 units of previous generation of Accord, Civic, City and Jazz models in India as part of a global exercise to rectify faulty airbags.
The latest exercise takes the overall number of recalled vehicles, equipped with airbags manufactured by Takata, to around 3 lakh in India.
Millions of vehicles have been recalled across the globe due to defective safety airbag manufactured by Japan's Takata Corp.
It has affected vehicles manufacturers across brands, including BMW, Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota.