BIS providing services on Indian Standards free of cost: DG
14 Apr 2021
1
The services of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) are now available free of cost for everyone, BIS Director General P K Tiwari said in his virtual address to the media on Tuesday.
He said, for the benefit of industry, particularly the MSME sector, Indian Standards are now available free of cost, and can be downloaded from the Standardisation Portal of e-BIS.
Standardisation of production is planned to be achieved through a combination of processes engineering, automation and manpower augmentation, he said.
Towards this, BIS arranges quarterly meetings of sectional committees, stage-wise timeframe for every standard under development or revision, makes action research an integral part of the process and broad-bands consultation process through standardisation cells in ministries and industry associations.
Besides, BIS provides for better provisioning of human resources to ensure that one scientific officer does not deal with more than 30 standards in a year and initiates revision of standards parallel to formulation or revision of corresponding ISO/IEC standards for prompt harmonisation.
BIS, he said, has nearly 21,000 Indian Standards. The objective is to ensure genius standard for every product relevant for the national economy and consumers.
He further informed that the Scheme of One Nation One Standard has been launched to harmonise the standard formulation work happening in various organisations, adding that the process of consultation is on with SDOs like RDSO, Indian Road Congress, and Directorate of Standardization under the ministry of defence etc.
As regards conformity assessment, he informed that several steps have been taken to ease the compliance burden on the stakeholders like automation of the entire process of certification, including grant of licence, renewal of licence, and inclusion is automated through Manak Online Portal of e-BIS, strict timelines for the disposal of applications and real-time basis monitoring of compliance and introduction of the system of automatic renewal of licences.
He said there has been a substantial reduction in the minimum marking fee, ie, 50 per cent for micro industry and start-ups and women entrepreneurs while old licence holders will get additional 10 per cent rebate. More than 80 per cent products being brought under simplified procedure.
This means licence for the manufacturing of these products will be granted within a period of one month, A system of consultation with applicants has been introduced at the stage of scrutiny of application to avoid delay in processing. He informed that as a result of these initiatives, it has been possible to dispose of more than 90 per cent applications within the prescribed timeframe.
Further, he said, Factory and Market Surveillance is critical to creating quality consciousness in the country and following initiatives have been taken to strengthen the surveillance system:
• Engagement of five NABCB accredited agencies for carrying out Factory Surveillance;
• Engagement of two outside agencies to carry out Market Surveillance;
• Development of Mobile App-based surveillance system for greater speed and transparency;
• Integration of ICEGATE of Customs with foreign manufacturers certification module of e-BIS for surveillance of imported goods; and
• Module for regular feeding of production and consignee details introduced in Manak Online.
To make the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) more efficient, he said, steps have been taken to automate the entire process of testing of product samples in BIS and recognised private labs. LIMS ensures tracking of the progress of each and every sample on real-time basis.
He said besides integration of LIMS with Manak Online and CRS portals, automation of laboratory recognition scheme, integration of the accreditation and recognition processes of NABL and BIS, renovation of BIS lab infrastructure, plan of action for expansion and upgradation of testing facilities based on a scientific gap analysis are being undertaken to ease the process.
DG BIS also briefed about the guidelines issued for setting up cluster-based laboratories and satellite laboratories.
In his briefing about the initiatives, he said, to make Hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts a credible and transparent process, BIS has taken steps like online and automatic system of jeweller registration, automation of the entire process of the assaying and hallmarking, mobile app based system of market surveillance and audit of assaying and Hallmarking centres and launch of certificate course in Hallmarking to ensure the availability of qualified manpower.
He further informed that several steps have been taken, including setting up of standardisation cells in ministries and industry associations, increased consultation with industry in a structured manner, MoUs with premier educational institutions like IITs, IIMs and NLUs, creation of an Expert Group for integration of standards with the curricula of engineering and professional institutions, creation of standards clubs in high schools and colleges.
Addressing the media about BIS initiatives, secretary Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), Leena Nandan, said that BIS has achieved many milestones in its journey of development and played important role in the growth of the country. She said BIS has taken up many new initiatives and these new initiatives will improve efficiency of our manufacturing sector and in standardisation and quality of products. A booklet on BIS reforms was also launched on this occasion.
.webp)
