Recalls by the auto companies have been very frequent off late by the automotive OEMs across the globe. Most of them have been due to faulty components that the company finds out later and some infact compromise with the passenger safety which makes it all the more worse. With such instances increasing, the Indian automotive industry lobby, SIAM is now working on drafting a voluntary recall policy for its members to address such cases.
Mr. S Sandilya, President of SIAM stated that as of now, there is no government policy on the recall issue. SIAM is currently framing a guideline for its members which will be beneficial for them and will be a voluntary initiative from the manufacturers. He also added that SIAM is currently working on the policy and it is expected to be completed in the next few months. Being termed as “Voluntary Recall policy”, the draft is in interest of the manufacturers and makes them proactive rather than making them reactive.
However, an important aspect about the policy is that the policy won’t be a mandatory one for the auto companies. Recently, BMW had announced a recall of close to 3422 cars of its 5 and 6 series models to replace a faulty battery cable cover. The country’s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki also conducted such an exercise with recalling about 1 lakh units of A-Star to replace a fuel pump gasket. Honda, Toyota and Tata Motors have also done such exercises in the past.
