5 ways India is kicking car safety into top gear with Bharat NCAP 2.0: What buyers need to know | India News
Bharat NCAP 2.0, planned for October 2027, will look beyond what happens when a car crashes. The proposed system will examine the entire safety chain: from how a vehicle helps avoid a collision to how well it protects occupants, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users, and what happens after an accident.Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari announced the proposed timeline at the SIAM Annual Convention in September 2026. The second phase is being planned as the first phase of Bharat New Car Assessment Programme, or Bharat NCAP, approaches the end of its current cycle.According to the ministry of road transport and highways’ draft AIS-197 Revision 1, the first phase of Bharat NCAP began on October 1, 2023 and is valid until September 30, 2027. The draft revision has been prepared as the framework for Bharat NCAP 2.0.The proposed changes could make the safety rating a much broader measure of a car’s performance, not just in a crash, but before, during and after one.
About Bharat NCAP
What is Bharat NCAP?
Bharat NCAP is India’s own vehicle crash-testing and safety-rating programme. It was formally launched by the ministry of road transport and highways in August 2023 and became operational from October 1, 2023.The programme applies to type-approved passenger vehicles in the M1 category with a gross vehicle weight of less than 3.5 tonnes. It is voluntary, which means manufacturers can offer eligible vehicles for assessment.The programme is anchored by the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT), while testing is carried out through designated agencies with the required infrastructure.At its core, Bharat NCAP gives car buyers a common safety benchmark. A vehicle must already meet mandatory regulatory requirements to be sold in India. Bharat NCAP goes a step further by putting eligible vehicles through specified tests and awarding them a rating of between one and five stars.
India’s own car safety assessment programme
The idea is fairly simple: instead of looking only at a car’s price, design or features, buyers get an additional reference point to understand how the vehicle performs in standardised safety tests.The government has also positioned the programme as a way to encourage manufacturers to improve vehicle safety and strengthen the safety standards of cars made in India.
How does the current Bharat NCAP system work?
The existing programme broadly assesses three areas:
Adult Occupant Protection (AOP)Child Occupant Protection (COP)- Safety Assist Technologies (SAT)
Vehicles are subjected to prescribed crash tests and other assessments. Their performance across these parameters is then used to arrive at the overall star rating.The current framework includes a 64 kmph offset frontal impact test, a 50 kmph side movable deformable barrier test and a pole side impact test, among other checks prescribed under AIS-197.The assessment therefore goes beyond simply asking whether the passenger compartment remains intact.Adult Occupant Protection examines the risk of injury to adults in different crash conditions and seating positions. Child Occupant Protection looks at the protection offered to younger passengers, including the use and installation of child restraint systems.Safety Assist Technologies, meanwhile, covers technologies designed to help prevent crashes or reduce their severity.
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Why are adult and child safety assessed separately?
A car may offer different levels of protection to adults and children, so Bharat NCAP evaluates the two separately.The adult assessment focuses on occupant protection during prescribed crash scenarios, while the child assessment considers how effectively younger occupants are protected and how child restraint systems work within the vehicle.This also means that a car’s overall star rating is not simply a score from one crash test. It reflects performance across several safety parameters.For consumers, the individual scores can therefore provide more information than looking at the star rating alone.
Who tests the cars?
Bharat NCAP is anchored by CIRT, with testing carried out through designated testing agencies that have the required facilities.The wider automotive testing ecosystem includes agencies such as the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) and the International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT).Manufacturers submit eligible vehicles for assessment under the programme. The existing framework specifies procedures around the variant selected for testing, including provisions concerning the base variant of a model.That distinction matters when reading a Bharat NCAP result. A rating should not automatically be assumed to apply to every variant of a model unless the official assessment covers those variants.
Four assessments of NCAP
Bharat NCAP ratings
Bharat NCAP ratings range from one to five stars. A higher rating indicates stronger performance under the programme’s prescribed assessment criteria.But a five-star rating is not a guarantee that occupants will escape injury in every real-world crash. NCAP testing is conducted under standardised conditions and is intended to provide a basis for comparing vehicle safety performance.It is also important to distinguish Bharat NCAP from the mandatory certification requirements for selling a vehicle in India.Bharat NCAP is voluntary and is designed to provide consumers with additional information beyond the mandatory regulatory framework. A vehicle being tested or rated under Bharat NCAP should therefore not be confused with regulatory approval.Since its launch, Bharat NCAP has increasingly become part of the safety conversation around new car launches. The ratings have also become a factor in how manufacturers present their vehicles to consumers, particularly as safety becomes a more visible consideration in the passenger-vehicle market.
What do the stars represent?
So, what changes with Bharat NCAP 2.0?
This is where the proposed second phase takes a much wider approach.The draft AIS-197 Revision 1 divides Bharat NCAP 2.0 into five safety verticals:
- Safe driving
- Crash avoidance
- Crash protection
- Vulnerable road user protection
- Post-crash safety
The change is significant because the current system focuses mainly on occupant protection and safety-assist technologies, while the proposed framework looks at the complete safety chain.The draft framework uses a 100-point assessment structure, with Crash Protection accounting for 55% of the assessment. The remaining weightage covers the other safety areas.In other words, the crash itself will still be a major part of the rating, but it will no longer be the only part of the safety story.
Five crash tests in the proposed new framework
Bharat NCAP 2.0 proposes expanding the Crash Protection assessment to five mandatory crash tests:
- 64 kmph offset frontal impact against a deformable barrier
- 50 kmph frontal impact against a full-width rigid barrier
- 50 kmph lateral impact against a mobile deformable barrier
- 32 kmph oblique side impact against a rigid pole
- 50 kmph rear impact against a mobile rigid barrier
Adult and child occupant protection will continue to be assessed separately.The addition of full-width frontal and rear-impact tests means the proposed system will examine crash scenarios beyond the core tests in the existing framework.That gives the second phase a wider testing footprint and allows different types of impacts to form part of the overall safety assessment.
Not just about surviving crash
One of the biggest differences in Bharat NCAP 2.0 is that the programme is designed to look at what happens before a crash as well.Crash Avoidance is one of the five proposed verticals. It focuses on technologies and vehicle characteristics that can help prevent a collision or reduce its severity.
Your guide to safer cars
Safe Driving is another proposed category, widening the assessment beyond the vehicle’s passive protection features.Together, these categories shift the focus from simply asking, “How well does this car perform when it crashes?” to a broader question: “How does this vehicle contribute to safety across different stages of a road incident?”Bharat NCAP 2.0 also proposes a separate Vulnerable Road User Protection category. This brings pedestrians and other vulnerable road users more directly into the safety assessment.The proposed framework also asks a different question: what happens once the collision has taken place?Post-Crash Safety is one of the five proposed assessment areas. Minister Gadkari described Bharat NCAP 2.0 as covering the entire safety chain, including post-crash evacuation and care. “We are going to evaluate the entire crash chain,” Gadkari said, adding that new technologies developed globally as well as by startups would be considered under the programme.This means the assessment is intended to extend beyond the instant of impact and examine safety considerations in the period immediately after a crash.It adds another layer to the programme’s approach: avoiding the crash where possible, protecting people during the impact, and addressing safety after the collision.
What does Bharat NCAP mean for car buyers?
For buyers, Bharat NCAP offers an additional way to compare cars beyond mandatory safety requirements.A consumer can look at a vehicle’s overall rating as well as its adult and child protection performance and the safety technologies considered in the assessment.The rating is not meant to replace other factors involved in buying a car. Price, size, fuel efficiency, features, driving requirements and other considerations remain relevant, but the proposed 2.0 framework would expand that information further.Buyers could eventually have a broader picture of how a car performs across crash protection, crash avoidance, safe driving, vulnerable-road-user protection and post-crash safety.Bharat NCAP is one part of a much larger road-safety challenge, focusing on the structure of vehicles. Vehicle design and safety technology can influence the outcome of a crash, but they cannot address every reason why accidents happen.The ministry has identified several factors associated with road crashes, including speeding, mobile-phone use, drunken driving, wrong-side driving, lane indiscipline, jumping red lights and failure to use helmets and seat belts. Vehicle condition, road conditions and weather can also play a role.
Several countries have their own NCAPS
Government data recorded 1,68,491 road accident fatalities in 2022.Bharat NCAP therefore addresses one part of this wider equation: the safety performance of vehicles. Its proposed second phase would broaden that role by looking at what a vehicle can do to help avoid crashes, how it protects people when a crash occurs, how it protects vulnerable road users and what happens afterwards.
The bottom line
The current Bharat NCAP phase remains valid until September 30, 2027. The government has proposed introducing Bharat NCAP 2.0 from October 2027, with the draft AIS-197 Revision 1 serving as the framework for the next phase.The proposed transition would take India’s vehicle safety-rating system from a relatively focused crash and occupant-protection programme to a broader safety assessment.
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The familiar one-to-five-star rating would remain the consumer-facing language of vehicle safety, but the assessment behind it is set to become much more comprehensive.The bigger shift is in the question Bharat NCAP is trying to answer. Instead of looking only at how a car performs when it is involved in a crash, the proposed system would examine the vehicle’s safety journey from avoiding a collision to protecting occupants and vulnerable road users, and supporting safety after the crash.That could give Indian car buyers a wider set of safety information to consider when choosing their next vehicle.
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