Electronics product makers get 3 more months to acquire BIS tag

The Government has extended the date for registering electronics products with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) by another three months.

According to an earlier order, electronic companies were supposed to get 15 listed electronic and information technology goods registered with BIS.

The earlier deadline was of July 3, which was also an extension from previous date of April this year.

However, the companies that have not sent any applications to the BIS till now will have to pay double the amount of the current processing fee of Rs 25,000 for each application, including one test report for grant of registration.

“The companies can still apply for the applications along with the test reports of the products, but at double the fee to the BIS,” J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY), told Business Line .

However, he said the companies can still sell their products in the market and also those companies that had sent applications till Wednesday, but have not gotten any registration number for their products yet.

In a notification dated Tuesday, DeitY said, “In partial modification of the Notification dated March 20, it is hereby notified that manufacturing units which have submitted the products for testing to the BIS recognised labs to comply to the ‘Electronics and IT Goods (requirement Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012’ before July 3, but test reports are not available, be granted an extension without any fee for three months effective July 4.”

It said other provision of the Notification dated March 20 would apply as before.

Business Line on June 19 had reported that the deadline may get extended by October, owing to BIS not having enough laboratories to test all the products within timeframe (on or before July 3).

The problem is that out of 140 labs certified by BIS to register product, there are only nine where the listed electronic products can be registered.

Test labs

When asked Satyanarayana if any additional test labs would be given for the task, he said the nine labs are enough as of now and will ‘review if more is required in future’.

“This is a new environment we are creating, but cannot disrupt the supply of the products also, so the extension of the date,” he said.

There are 15 electronic products under the Compulsory Registration Order, including video games, microwave ovens, laptops, tablet computers, LCD television, telephone answering machines, electronic music systems and printers.

The companies that had sent applications said there is delay in getting the registrations done. “Some progress is there, but better to have easy process overall to avoid duplication of efforts and delays for product launches,” S. Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India, said.

On asked BIS, a senior official said six manufacturing units have been identified as of Wednesday including those of Samsung, Sony and a Chinese company for products such as printers, LED/ LCD televisions and set-top boxes.

“Samsung was the first applicant so we have passed its application for manufacturing products in its facilities in South Korea, Malaysia and Noida,” the official told Business Line requesting anonymity.

“We have been successful in getting certification for most of our product categories within the framework set by BIS and DeitY,” Taeho Roh, Vice-President –IT, Samsung Electronics said.

According to the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), there were around 1,500 products owned by 80 companies, which have been sent for testing till last month.

> ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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