New Delhi: In an effort to ensure safety of passengers, the Central government announced its decision to make the passenger side airbag mandatory in new cars. Issuing a notification, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said that the new rule will require all new vehicles to have dual front airbags as standard fitment from April 1, 2021. Meanwhile, existing vehicles will be required to be sold with dual airbags from August 31, 2021.
The government further added that the mandate was an important safety feature and is also based on the suggestions of the Supreme Court Committee on road safety. The need for dual front airbags has been long advocated by the Centre for road safety, and will be extremely beneficial on entry-level cars that often miss out on the safety feature on the base trims. The Centre also in the notification said that the airbag will need to meet the AIS 145 standard under the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications.
The Centre had in December last year sought public comment on a proposal to make airbags mandatory for the front passenger in all cars from this year, in a move that could raise costs for automakers slowly seeing a revival in demand.
The development comes as the low-cost inclusions such as speed alert, reverse parking sensors and seat-belt reminders have become standard features in most cars but life-saving airbags are still not mandatory.
Earlier, the government had made having an airbag mandatory for the driver’s seat in all cars. This had come into effect on July 1, 2019.