NEW DELHI: The world’s largest airbag suppliers are setting up plants and ramping up capacity in India, eyeing a $2 billion opportunity thanks to tougher rules aimed at improving one of the world’s worst road-safety records.

In India, a person is killed in a road accident every four minutes — 141,000 in 2014 — yet less than a third of the 2.6 million cars sold each year have airbags in this cost-conscious market.

But a planned law that will impose crash test standards by 2017 is creating an opportunity for makers of safety equipment, as cars without air bags will achieve only the lowest safety ratings after tests.

That, for the first time, will force consumers to directly consider the risks they run by buying cheap. By 2020, overall revenues from airbag sales in India are set to rise 11 per cent a year to hit $2 billion, outpacing the nine per cent growth expected in China, according to data from Transparency Market Research.

By then, India is expected to be selling over five million cars a year.