Reflector manufacturers feel the heat as deadline draws close

Ludhiana: As the July 1 deadline for use of new kind of reflectors in bicycles draws close, bicycle manufacturers from the city are up on their toes. Their repeated requests to Modi government to defer this decision taken by the Supreme Court committee on road safety have gone unanswered till now. Almost two weeks ago during his visit to Ludhiana, Union minister for agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh, had assured bicycle and reflector manufacturers that within 15 days, he would get their meeting fixed with Union minister of road transport ,Nitin Gadkari.But no communication has been received so far.
Speaking to TOI, Charanjit Singh Vishivkarma, president of United cycle and parts manufacturers association (UCPMA), said, "With only a few days to go for the new rule to come into force, our industry is completely unprepared. On one side, we don't have adequate supply of new set of reflectors which has been made mandatory by the government and on the other side, we are worried about the 100 odd reflector manufacturers of the city who might go out of business since they are not fully-equipped to manufacture the requisite quality as specified under the new rule."
He said, "We are still awaiting response from Union agriculture minister's office and Union minister for road transport's office under whose jurisdiction this matter falls. If the deadline is extended by 6 months more, we will hopefully be able to manufacture the same product in Ludhiana and that too from our present reflector industry as we will equip them with technology."
Criticising decision of the government to make new reflectors mandatory which are only available from China and Taiwan, Baljeet Singh, a reflector manufacturer from the city, said, "This decision seemed to have been taken in haste as I don't think any study has ever proved till now that the reflectors being manufactured by us are not up to the mark and lack the quality needed to make night riding of the bicycle safe. But if this decision is not rolled back, it will certainly destroy our industry as we are already struggling with orders because of new trends of fixing reflector tapes instead of reflectors."