Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said most of the car makers in India are already exporting cars with six airbags and they need to adopt such safety standards for cars in India as well. He said that car companies should also think about the safety of people using small cheap cars.
Addressing the annual session of the Association of Auto Component Manufacturers of India (ACMA), Gadkari said that 1.5 lakh people die and more than three lakh people are injured in about five lakh road accidents every year.
Nitin Gadkari said, most of the car makers in India are exporting cars with six airbags. But, in India they are hesitating because of the economic cost. The minister said that reducing accidents in the country is the need of the hour.
According to Gadkari, the central government is preparing to make the rule mandatory to install at least six airbags in cars. These types of airbags will be arranged in every segment, variant and car with different prices. This has heated up the discussion in the market that the prices of cars will increase even more in the coming days.
He has said in the past that people sit in the back seats of cars where airbags are not fitted, whereas an airbag costs Rs 800. If airbags are installed then maximum safety of people will be ensured.
Emphasising on the need for airbags, Nitin Gadkari reiterated that 5 lakh accidents take place on the country's roads every year in which 1.5 lakh people die and three lakh people get injured. Nitin Gadkari said this while referring to the World Road Statistics 2018 report in the Lok Sabha.
Today, India is at the fourth place in the world in the market of cars, where every year this demand is increasing rapidly.
A data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that in the year 2021, there were 1.55 lakh deaths in road accidents. This figure is of 426 deaths every day in a year. Or rather, 18 people lost their lives per hour. The special thing is that in these deaths, the lives of 11 per cent of the people could have been saved if they had kept seat belts on.