Government notifies iCAT as an accredited agency for automotive research
Government has notified International Centre for Automotive Technology (iCAT) as an accredited “Type Approval and homologation” agency of India under Central Motor Vehicle Rules. iCAT is a state-of-the-art centre coming up at Manesar, about 60 km from Delhi, under the ambitious National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP) for providing wide range of testing, research and development services to the automotive industry within and outside the country. NATRiP is a Rs.1718 crore mission of the Department of Heavy Industry to set up world class automotive testing, homologation and R&D infrastructure in India.
Currently, iCAT has an investment of Rs.62 crore and the facilities are spread over more than 8 acres of land. The Centre has already started rendering valuable support services to the automotive industry in the country. An investment of Rs.400 crore under NATRiP for setting up added facilities by way of tracks and testing infrastructure is currently underway on additional 42 acres of land being allotted by the Government of Haryana. Once completed by 2010, iCAT would be one of the most modern automotive technical centers in this part of the world and would meet the country’s full range of testing, R&D and homologation requirements. iCAT will be equipped with the state-of-the-art facilities to test and validate all categories of vehicles including two/three wheelers, cars, MUV/SUVs, light, medium and heavy commercial vehicles, gensets and entire range of off-road vehicles. The facilities at iCAT would be versatile and capable of testing and developing vehicles propelled by alternative fuels and alternate propulsion systems.
The infrastructure coming up at iCAT includes two state-of-the-art Centres of Excellence in the areas of Noise, Vibration & Harshness (NVH) and component designing and development, both being focus areas for advanced automotive research in India. This would enormously help the automotive industry, especially the component industry of this region, which accounts for nearly one third of the national auto sector turnover.
iCAT would also provide global trade related testing and certification services to OEMs within India and outside in active collaboration with the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), of the UK Government with which NATRiP has signed an MoU.
iCAT’s birth as an independent type approval agency reflects reaching of a major milestone by NATRiP.
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MG/SR
(Release ID :28217)