Piyush Goyal. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal on January 6 mentioned the federal government will bring more products under the mandatory quality norm as India strikes in the direction of turning into a developed nation by 2047.
Addressing nearly the 77th basis day of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Mr. Goyal mentioned complying with excessive quality requirements in products and providers will assist India obtain excessive targets and change into a developed nation.
Towards this course, the BIS ought to change into an envoy of quality requirements. “It should not just become an adopter of standards, but should be a pioneer of standards,” he mentioned.
That aside, the BIS ought to body quality requirements comparable to worldwide requirements wherever doable. “For example in products such as lift, air filters and medical devices, I think India can be a front-runner and set international standards.” He additionally urged for a lot larger stakeholder engagement for making quality requirements and requested the trade to be more demanding to set labs for testing the quality.
Hailing the BIS efforts in making a quality acutely aware nation, the Minister mentioned bringing more products under the mandatory compliance of quality norms issued via the Quality Control Order (QCO) has ensured availability of quality products/providers to the shoppers.
“So far, 156 QCOs have been issued, covering 672 products. Before 2014, only 106 products were covered under 14 QCOs,” he mentioned.
“In future, more products will be brought under the QCO. I believe we will be covering 2,000-2,500 products,” he mentioned, and added, “Our commitment to the quality will be so strong that every product/service available in India will be of higher quality.”
The Minister additional mentioned that over a long time, India was depending on international requirements for quality. “Now, India’s pace and progress will be decided and dependent on our own standards. We will rely on our standards, not foreign standards, thus become self-reliant,” he added.
Among initiatives taken within the latest years, Mr. Goyal mentioned hallmarking of gold jewelry and mandatory quality compliance in toys stand out and which introduced transformation within the nation. Hallmarking is a purity certification of the valuable metallic.
“Currently, hallmarking facilities are available in more than 340 districts. More than 4.15 lakh articles are hallmarked on a daily basis and 90-95% consumers buy hallmarked jewellery,” he mentioned.
“Similarly in toys too, the mandatory quality compliance has helped reduce the cheap imports by 52% and now safe and quality toys are available in the Indian market,” he added.
Asserting that good quality is non-negotiable and complying with quality doesn’t make the product costlier, the Minister urged the trade to actively have interaction in setting quality requirements and confused on sustaining transparency in quality testing.
Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Ashwini Choubey, Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh, Department of Promotion and Internal Trade Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh, and BIS Director General Pramod Kumar Tiwari had been current on the occasion.
