union road transport and highways minister nitin gadkari today said that it has been decided to implement a proposal mandating a minimum of six airbags in all passenger cars m1 category with effect from october 2023 considering the global supply chain constraints being faced by the auto industry and its impact on the macroeconomic scenario it has been decided to implement the proposal mandating a minimum of 6 airbags in passenger cars m1 category wef october 1 2023 minister gadkari said in a tweet the government had earlier issued a draft notification on january 14 2022 and according to the draft notification the 6airbag rule was supposed to be effective from 1 october 2022 but the domestic automotive industry had sought a rethink on the rule amid rising regulatory costs making passenger vehicles expensive the draft notification mandates that vehicles of category m1 with up to 8 seats shall be fitted with two sideside torso airbags one each for the persons occupying front row outboard seating positions and two side curtaintube airbags one each for the persons occupying outboard seating positionsthis new mandate of providing 6 airbags will apply to budget to midrange vehicles that are not equipped with rear passenger airbags most cars and suvs on sale under rs 20 lakh only provide rear airbags and side curtain airbags for the topspec variants of their cars this mandate will definitely make vehicles safer for occupantstwo airbags in all passenger cars are already mandatory and now the average cost of adding up four more airbags would be around rs 800010000 with each airbag priced at rs 1800 to 2000 and the modifications costing rs 2000 the prices are expected to go up by around rs 30000 with the addition of four more airbags