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General Motors India recently announced a recall of 1.14 lakh units of the Chevrolet Tavera MPV. The massive recall had prompted the government to order a probe into GM India. An internal probe revealed that GM India violated testing norms. Some GM employees were involved into practice of providing fine tuned lower emission pre-tested engines, which were kept aside and were installed only during inspection checks in order to meet specified emission norms.
The employees also manipulated the weight of several models to comply with less stringent emission norms. Violating these norms would lead to monetary fine on GM India but if widespread conspiracy was established, the Indian Penal Code could invoke further big penalties. After the big investigations, some of the GM staff is in trouble and more than 20 executives including four top bosses are being asked to leave the company.
Meanwhile, the US parent of General Motors India has taken this grim situation severely and they don’t want to compromise on their ethics. They are expected to issue some transfer orders and have asked some senior executives to resign. Within a year there has been nine recalls in India ranging from two-wheelers to cars and SUVs, including the latest and the biggest ever recall of 1.14 lakh units of Tavera. This has provoked the Indian government to conduct a review.
The increasing number of technical snags has lead the government to setup a committee to fill in loopholes in the manufacturing practices of the auto industry to check the authenticity and quality of manufacturing. A committee has been setup by the Ministry of Heavy Industry with a mandate to investigate specific check on macro manufacturing practices of auto companies. Confirmation of Production System (COP) would be examined for the entire industry.
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