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With the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) making it mandatory for kitchen appliance makers to get certification from May 1, some players have raised concerns regarding certain testing parameters such as the “Endurance Test”.
Sources said that some industry players have urged BIS to either keep the endurance test parameter in abeyance for the time being or to postpone the implementation of mandatory certification regime till the time a new testing standard is notified to replace it.
Endurance test
The national standards body is slated to meet on Wednesday the kitchen appliance manufacturers as well as the laboratories to look into some of the issues raised by the industry.
In October 2018, BIS had notified that makers of domestic electric food mixers (liquidisers and grinders) and centrifugal juicers will have to conform to its standards to mandatorily obtain licence to use the Standard Mark.
It gave manufacturers time till April-end to comply with these norms.
A senior executive with a small appliances company said: “The ‘endurance test’ parameter is a crude and old methodology; the test is done using materials such as paper pulp and not materials used in the kitchen. This needs to be re-looked, without diluting it,” he added.
Another kitchen appliance manufacturer said that smaller and regional players are impacted more compared to the national players and that the industry is facing delays in getting the necessary test results from laboratories to obtain this quality certification.
Responding to a query from BusinessLine, Kapil Agarwal, CEO, Groupe SEB India, said that the BIS standards are in line with the global norms and are designed for the benefit of the Indian consumers.
Kitchen safety
“They also ensure safety of the products. Yes, the process is time-consuming and Groupe SEB in India has obtained the certification for juicer mixer grinder and mixer grinder, while [certification for] the hand blender is still awaited. We believe in driving growth through innovation that matters to the consumers and have invested in the same and product quality to comply with the standards,” he added.
Manoj Khattar, President-Quality and R&D, Usha International, added: “The BIS norms were made mandatory for the mixer-grinder category since May 1, and we are compliant with it.”
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