The Bureau of Indian Standards has decided to bring more than 80 per cent of the products that come under its purview under a simplified licensing procedure to enable manufacturers to get licence within one month.

As part of various initiatives to reduce compliance burden, it has also decided to bring down the annual minimum marking fee paid by micro enterprises, start-ups and women entrepreneurs for BIS certification.

Speaking to mediapersons on Tuesday, Leena Nandan, Secretary, Consumer Affairs Ministry said that this is being done in a bid to incentivise start-ups, women entrepreneurs and micro enterprises to focus on quality. The annual minimum marking fee has been reduced by 50 per cent and old licence holders will also get 10 per cent rebate.

Simplifying process

Pramod Kumar Tiwari, DG, BIS said that several measures such as automation of the entire certification process of certification, automatic renewal of licences are being introduced to expedite licensing process.

In a bid to contain cheap imports and reduce production of sub-standard products, BIS has also issued quality control orders for 354 products which require mandatory certification, including steel products, footwear, electronic products and toys among other.

Tiwari said that so far 250 toy makers have got licences and notices have been sent to malls and airports so that they ensure only BIS certified toys are sold.

Gold quality certification

Meanwhile, the Ministry said that it is fully prepared to implement mandatory hallmarking of gold jewellery and artefacts from June 1, 2021. Gold hallmarking is a purity certification and is voluntary at present.

Earlier, it was to become mandatory from January 15 but the industry got an extension of four months due to the pandemic.

“BIS is fully geared and involved in giving approvals to jewellers for hallmarking,” Nandan said.

So far, 34,647 jewellers have registered with the BIS and in the next couple of months, one lakh jewellers are expected to register, Tewari added. From June 1, jewellers will be allowed to sell gold jewellery of only 14, 18 and 22 carats.

BIS has nearly 21,000 and is making them available free of cost. These can be downloaded from the Standardisation Portal of e-BIS.

Related Topics