Jugads-Assembled vehicles of North india

You know about assembled computers-know have a look at these assembled vehicles, which I found in hundreds in UP/Haryana region.

What’s unique about these vehicles?
Have a closer look-engine is made out of a diesel generator. Other components like steering wheel, transmission and all are sourced from spare parts of various vehicles-may be from that of a jeep, tractor or trucks.

First time when I saw this, I thought some local mechanic might be experimenting with this makeshift vehicle, but during next 2 days, I saw hundreds of them. Seems quite popular and visibly cheap-couldn’t have costed more than a lakh per vehicle. (And you thought TATA NANO is pretty cheap-I’m sure given enough support these guys can make even cheaper car) None of the vehicles have any sort of registration details on them. There’s no proper protection to engine, which braves everything from dust, air, rain and sun. Rear view mirror, turn indicators, Airbag, seat belt, ABS- try explaining them all these...


Clearly, this is very much an organized business, but with no proper branding, license, permits and such things that bother any legitimate enterprise. Whoever is behind this, must be pretty genius and could have taken up this initiative on a large scale adhering to applicable guidelines. (May be he’ll lose the cost advantage if he starts following rules and regulations) Law enforcement agencies seem to have turned a blind eye towards these unauthorized vehicles on road, though our driver Ajay tells these vehicles are found only in villages and on highways, where policing is pretty low. When asked what are these vehicles called he gave a 3 letter name, which I’m unable to recall now.

A side view:

This generator below is twice as powerful as the one you see in the vehicle above

Camera Used: Sony DSC H50. High resolution images (Nearly 3 MB each) available on request. What you see above are compressed images for the blog.

Update: These vehicles are called Jugads or Maruthas. There's no paperwork for these vehicles and they do not exist legally. If you're hit by them you can't even claim insurance...(inputs from IndiaMike users)