Bureau of Indian Standards to enhance efficiency of certification procedures

In March, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) announced steps to promote the ease of doing business in India, including an expansion of testing facilities to provide companies with better access to facilities close to their production sites. Recently, the Director General of BIS, Pramod Kumar Tiwari, announced several practical measures to make it easier and less costly for companies to get their products certified. The goal is to encourage more companies to obtain BIS certification licenses voluntarily for their products.

Easy access to Indian Standards will be provided free of cost through the eBIS online portal (Manak Online). Out of around 21.000 Indian Standards published by BIS so far, the standards that have been indigenously developed by BIS are available for free download

To ease compliance procedures, the process of certification ­ – including granting and renewal of licenses – will be managed through the eBIS online portal from now on. Specific timelines for the disposal of applications have been published, which makes real-time monitoring of compliance easier. It is expected that these measures will improve the efficiency and transparency of the BIS certification process.

Moreover, BIS decided to bring more than 80 per cent of the products falling under BIS-certification schemes under the ‘simplified procedure’. This means a license for manufacturing these products will be issued within a period of one month.

Start-ups, microenterprises and women entrepreneurs will receive a 50 per cent rebate on the annual minimum marking fee for new licenses. The marking fee varies from product to product and must be paid by the manufacturer to BIS for use of its certification. For existing licenses, the minimum marking fees have been further reduced by 10 per cent in addition to the 20 per cent discount that was given earlier.

A comprehensive overview of the BIS reforms is available here. This BIS publication elaborates on the need for these reforms as well as the approach to standardisation and various certification schemes.

Find out more about the Global Project Quality Infrastructure of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the activities of the Indo-German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure.