The International Road Federation (IRF), a Geneva-based global road safety body, has urged the Goods & Service Tax (GST) council and the ministry of finance to reduce GST on helmets from 18% to nil to make them affordable to the masses and road accident fatalities to two-wheeler riders.
“IRF strongly recommends that there should be no GST on helmets. This will help in making the standard helmets more affordable for the masses and will discourage them from buying helmets of substandard quality,” KK Kapila, president emeritus, International Road Federation (IRF) said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
“This in turn will assist, not only in reducing road accident fatalities of two wheeler riders, but will also help in reducing the whooping GDP loss due to road accidents to our economy,” Kapila said.
Citing the Bosch report, IRF said India accounts for about 12% of road accident deaths worldwide and the economic loss is about USD 15.71- 38.81 billion.
The two wheeler riders, being most vulnerable, constitute almost 31.4% of road accidental deaths primarily due to head injuries and one of the most effective measures to reduce the two wheeler accident injuries and fatalities is the use of standard helmets, it said.
As per the Section 129 of the Central Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 wearing of helmets is mandatory for two-wheeler riders. The ministry of road transport and highways, in consultation with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), passed a notification on July 30, 2020 making usage of helmets compulsory as per relevant BIS Standards.
IRF is of the view that the helmet usage in India is low as most of the two-wheeler riders fall in economically weaker and lower income groups and prefer to purchase helmets which are cheaper and inferior in quality resulting in head injuries and deaths in case of accidents.
