India’s helmet sector needs over ₹6,000 cr investment if safety rules are strictly enforced, says Steelbird MD Rajeev Kapur.

Kapur says strict enforcement could push India’s yearly need to as many as 12 crore helmets. Genuine manufacturers can make only about 3 crore a year today.

Closing that gap would also create at least one lakh jobs, he said. Fakes make things worse. Kapur estimates that around 3 crore counterfeit helmets are made in India every year, close to the output of genuine makers.

He also says some BIS licence holders sell helmets that miss the required standards. So he wants enforcement to wait until genuine capacity grows, or cheap fakes will flood the market.

He also wants licences limited to makers with their own testing labs. Steelbird has another request for the government.

It wants the proposed Rule 138F notified, which would put two helmets in the box with every new two-wheeler. Today only some bike makers include one.

Kapur says the rule would put over 4 crore genuine helmets on the road. Motorcycle prices would rise by around Rs 1,000, because manufacturers would buy in bulk.

Steelbird is growing too. It expects to make 1.2 crore helmets this year, up at least 20%. It runs seven plants in Himachal Pradesh and three in Noida.

Over the next two years, the company plans to spend Rs 250 crore on a new 22-acre facility in Himachal Pradesh.

It targets 2.5 crore helmets a year by 2032 and wants its own store count to go from about 400 to 1,000.

In April, the company said it made nearly 1 crore helmets in FY26 and had lifted daily output to 60,000. Revenue for the year came in at Rs 868.95 crore.

Prices are moving up. Steelbird’s range runs from Rs 899 to Rs 20,000, and its flagship now sells for around Rs 2,000, up from about Rs 1,000 earlier. The company sells only in India for now.

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