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NATRiP BEGINS TESTING AT MANESAR
ICAT Commences Homologation Of Components & Vehicles At Facility. AS global car makers shift their manufacturing base to India, the largest automotive project in Asia, the Rs 1,700-crore National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), has started testing vehicles and components at its Manesar greenfield facility.
NATRiP’s international centre for Automotive technology (ICAT) at Manesar has begun the homologation (testing) of components and vehicles, with Maruti-Suzuki, Honda Siel Cars, Eicher Motors, Hero Honda and Escorts utilising the facility. Project director and CEO Sunil Chaturvedi told ET, “Besides the domestic manufacturers’, we are eyeing major international market for homologation. The FI circuit, which is likely to touch base in 2009 in Delhi, would be a major gain for us as we would have the muscle to test all these high-speed cars participating in that event.â€
The 42-acre Manesar facility is currently under development and expected to go upstream with Rs 400-crore worth of equipment to be installed in the next two years. NATRiP is expecting a major growth in operations, once the facility goes full stream. With the current nascent setup, it is aiming to double its annual revenue to Rs 12 crore, from the Rs 6 crore last fiscal. A full-fledged facility would allow NATRiP to offer homologation services of Indian and global standards to all automakers. “We are computerising the entire homologation process, which would substantially reduce the testing time from the current six-months to a month, once the entire facility is developed. The auto maker will just have to send the vehicles along with the soft copies of technical reports and other details for any kind of homologation. It will make us one of the fastest automotive testing centres in the world,†Mr Chaturvedi said. Currently all vehicles introduced in the domestic market are tested and approved by the Automobile Research Association of India at Pune.
NATRIP is targeting 40% revenue from the overseas market by 2010 and has already received queries from Europe, Asia Pacific and the US. It has entered into an alliance with the Vehicle Certification Authority of the UK, and is negotiating with the Spanish IDIADA to certify its automotive testing process for the international market. “The agreement details are being worked out and once we develop all our facilities, we will offer all kinds of automotive testing and certification at extremely competitive prices. We are expecting major business from Europe and the South East Asia,†Mr Chaturvedi added.
Besides testing, Research & Development work has also started with a 25-member engineering team at Manesar. Two projects ‘Developing Adaptive Front Lighting’ for rotational head lights and ‘Vehicle Dynamic Characteristics in Wet Conditions’ for safer driving in rainy conditions are underway. Currently Natrip is executing projects of around Rs 1,200 crore at its six different facilities at Chennai, VRDE Ahmednagar , ARAI Pune, Rae Bareilly, Silchar and Indore to provide comprehensive homologation and product testing facilities for all kinds of vehicles and components. The total execution of projects worth Rs 1,500 for the development of these facilities are likely to finish by the end of 2009 fiscal.
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