Unification of certification standards in India
11. March 2020If you have dealt with product certification in India, you probably noticed that there are a lot of different certifications and for some products there are even several different mandatory certifications. That this is not welcomed by producers has been known to the Indian government for quite some time now.
It is not surprising then that the government is working hard to implement a “One nation, one standard” policy, so Ram Vilas Paswan, India’s Minister of Consumer Protection. According to this policy, certifications, which are currently still being carried out by about 50 independent authorities, will all fall under the purview of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
The BIS is already responsible for the majority of published product standards, but there are some important industrial sectors such as food and automotive for which independent authorities (FSSAI and ARAI, respectively) issue their own standards. This creates overlaps, which means that different standards may apply to certain products and they must be tested and certified separately.
The new directive is based on the ‘one nation, one ration card’ policy which will take effect on 1 June 2020, according to which people in need can obtain food throughout India with the same ration card, and is intended to remedy this situation.
For some product groups, the Ministry of Consumer Protection has also set a deadline of one year, although experience has shown that this is rarely met in India. In addition, there are a huge number of product standards and to have them all under one authority takes time. Nevertheless, the next few years should make the certification process easier for many producers.
In order not to give the BIS a monopoly on standardization AND implementation, negotiations are currently still underway on whether a separate supervisory authority should be set up or whether the existing certification authorities should be given a certain supervisory role for their respective sectors.
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Since 2005, the MPR International GmbH has been helping companies around the world obtain certifications for the Chinese and Indian markets. If you would like more Information regarding the certifications, please visit our website or contact us via email or phone +49 69 271 376 9261.
You can also take a look at our free India certification brochures, which you can download here as PDF files.
