Establishment of the Bureau of Indian Standards

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is a national legal body covered by the Ministry of consumer affairs, food, and public distribution. This Indian Standard institution is involved with the grading, testing, and quality checks of manufactured goods. The bureau focuses on the balanced development of various processes related to goods production, which includes standardisation, marking, and quality certification. BIS also investigates matters related with the growth production of goods directly or incidentally.

BIS regulates standardisation and assesses compliance with the rules associated with goods production.

The BIS has worked with various initiatives of the Indian government to address various national priorities, including Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, and Make in India. BIS has also worked to ease business through standardisation and certification and handles the market’s problems along with the issues of technology changes and advancements, environment, energy conservation, health and safety, and trade facilitation.

Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016

Parliament legislated the Bureau of Indian Standards Act in 1986, which came into force in December 1986. A new Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2015. The Bill was passed by both the houses of the Parliament and came into force in 2017.

This new statutory body, the BIS, was founded under the BIS Act of 2016. BIS examines the criteria for fine-quality goods and handles the standardisation regime. This Act has given the recognition of the ‘National Standards Body of India’ to the Bureau of Indian Standards.

Elements of the BIS Act

The primary functions of the BIS are as follows:

• The Bureau can specify, examine, and encourage the Indian Standard for goods, articles, methods, procedures, or services.
• To provide recognition to any institution outside or in India that is engaged in setting up standardisation.
• To promote and undertake such projects that may be necessary for the association of Indian Standards.
• The Bureau shall include a technical committee of experts based on the requirement for the association of standards for goods, articles, processes, systems, or services.
• No individual can set up an Indian Standard regarding any article or material without authorisation from the Bureau.
• Certificate of conformity after ensuring that the goods, article, process, system, or service conforms to a standard.
• A licence to apply a standard mark after the conform assessment of the goods.
• As per the Act, the central government may appoint any authority (apart from BIS) to check the conformity assessment of the goods and services and issue conformity certificates.
• The Central government grants loans as per the requirement of the Bureau. It has to maintain a proper record of the accounts and prepare annual statements of accounts as specified by the Central Government in consultation with the comptroller and auditor-general of India.

Various Activities of the BIS

BIS undertakes several activities of national priorities of various departments such as chemicals, food and agriculture, civil, hospital planning. These activities are grouped under the following heads:

Formulation of Standards

BIS formulates the appropriate Indian standards suitable for the consumers for 14 departments, including chemicals, food and agriculture,electro-technical, civil, electronics and information technology, mechanical engineering, management and systems, metallurgical engineering, medical equipment, petroleum coal and related products hospital planning, textile, transport engineering, production and general engineering, and water resources. These standards assist various industries in upgrading their quality of goods and services.

International Activities

• The International Organization for Standardization is the world’s largest developer of international standards and has BIS as its founding member. BIS participates in and observes several matters concerning the set up of international standards.
• BIS also represents India in the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC).
• BIS has participated in Regional and Bilateral Cooperation for testing, certification, training. BIS has signed various memoranda of understanding with national standard bodies of various countries.
• BIS is the national inquiry point for World Trade Organisation – Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT) matters.

Product Certification Under the BIS Act

FMCS

The Bureau of Indian Standards has formulated a different scheme to ensure the quality of foreign manufactured goods. BIS certifies the products manufactured outside India with the BIS Standard Mark after confirming the unity of the products to applicable Indian Standards.

Registration Scheme for the Self Declaration of Conformity

The BIS operates a registration scheme, which is a function of conformity assessment. A manufacturer declares that his/her products conform with the Indian Standard.

Hallmarking

BIS undertakes hallmarking of gold jewellery, silver jewellery, and artefacts, which provides certification of registration to the jewellers to sell hallmarked jewellery. Halmarking declares the fineness of the registered jewellery if they are by Indian Standards.

National Institute of Training for Standardization (NITS)

BIS imparts training programs to technical and management personnel from various industries and government-owned bodies. It conducts international training programs for developing countries under various cooperation schemes of the Government of India.

Consumers Affairs and Publicity

BIS maintains awareness and quality among all its consumers through the following awareness programs:

• Consumer Awareness Programmes: BIS makes the consumers aware of the quality of products, certification, and standardisation of products. It creates consciousness among the consumers.
• Public Grievances: BIS certifies and listens to grievances about the products. It reviews and monitors them regularly for redressal.
• Public Relations: BIS aims to tell its target audience, the industry and customer, about standardisation, certification of goods and services, and gold jewellery hallmarking.
• Educational Utilisation of Standard Programmes: BIS manages the educational use of standard programs (EUS) for students and faculties of schools and colleges to educate young minds about the benefits of standardisation.

Prohibition, Offences and Enforcement Activities under the BIS Act

The BIS Act provides provisions relating to prohibition, offences, and enforcement activities:

• No person without the approval of the Bureau, in any way or form, post or imitate any Indian Standard. No person shall issue a document that resembles the impression of an Indian Standard.
• No person shall use the Bureau name to perform malpractices or to deceive someone in the name of ‘Indian Standard’ or any other abbreviation related to the Bureau. A person cannot use a design or trademark concerning any goods, article, process, system, or service containing the expression ‘Indian Standard’ or ‘Indian Standard Specification’.
• If someone is found violating the same shall be punishable with a fine, which may extend to Rs. 500000.

• If someone imports, distributes, sells, stores, or displays the sale of goods or articles without any certification from the Bureau shall be punishable with imprisonment for one year or with a fine that may not be less than Rs 100000.
• BIS also performs enforcement activities to curb corrupt traders and manufacturers trying to imitate the Standard Mark to deceive the public. BIS protects consumers from poor quality products having a false impression of the BIS Standard Mark.
• Enforcement raids, search, and seizure operations are performed against traders and manufacturers if ever found evident from the information sources regarding the misuse of the Standard Marks. It results in licence cancellation and filing of prosecution cases in the Court of Law.

Compensation for Non-Conforming Goods

Whenever a licensed holder or a certificate of conformity holder sells any goods, article, process, system or service, which bears a standard mark that is not conforming to the relevant standard, or has colourful imitation, then the licensed holder or his representative shall be held liable for compensation of the consumer for the injury caused to him by such non-conforming goods, article, process, system, or service.

Cognisance of Offense by Courts

The offences under this Act can be tried only in front of a Metropolitan Magistrate or a Judicial Magistrate of the first class. The Court can take cognisance of offences only if the following authorities make the complaint:

• Authority of the Bureau
• Police who are not below deputy superintendent of police or equivalent.
• An officer appointed under the authority of the government
• Any consumer
• Any association

Conclusion

The BIS is a commitment to quality and checks different products and benefits of 14 sectors. Maintaining the standards in global trade is necessary, and agreement assessment methods have become very significant. Therefore, BIS plays a prominent role in maintaining Indian trade and exports. The standard quality of products exhibits willingness towards the good of the consumers and creates a healthy image of the host in the international market.