Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)

(Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution)

Why in news?

The Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Commerce & Industry and Railways Shri Piyush Goyal attended the 74^th foundation day celebration of Bureau of Indian Standards on 6^th January 2021.  On this occasion he inaugurated the Toy Testing facilities, which BIS has created across three of its laboratories and announced the launch of Certificate Courses on Assaying & Hallmarking as well as Quality Control.

About BIS

• Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) established under the BIS Act 2016.
• BIS is the National Standard Body of India for the harmonious development of the activities of standardization, marking and quality certification of goods and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
• BIS has been providing traceability and tangibility benefits to the national economy in a number of ways
  • providing safe reliable quality goods;
  • minimizing health hazards to consumers;
  • promoting exports and imports substitute;
  • control over proliferation of varieties etc. through standardization, certification and testing.
• BIS has its Headquarters at New Delhi

Bureau of Indian Standards Act

• BIS Act allows multiple types of simplified conformity assessment schemes including self-declaration of conformity.
• BIS act provides enabling provisions for making hallmarking of precious metal articles mandatory.
• The Act enables the Central Government to appoint any authority/agency, in addition to the BIS, to verify the conformity of products and services with the established standard and issue certificate of conformity.
• There is a provision for repair or recall, of the products (bearing Standard Mark) that do not conform to the relevant Indian Standard.
• New areas identified in standardization are:
  
  
  • Alternate fuels
  • E-mobility
  • Medical Devices
  • Smart Cities
  • Digital Technologies (e.g. Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Block Chain etc.)
  • New and Renewable energy.

Important initiatives for effective implementation of the BIS Act, 2016 are

• BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018 under the BIS act calls for Hallmarking of:
  
  
  • Gold jewellery and gold artefacts
  • Silver jewellery and silver artefacts
• Penal provisions for better and effective compliance have been made stringent under BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018.
• Also includes Agmark, ISI, BIS, BEE and Other Ratings