BIS announces initiatives for ease in compliance of industries and startups

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) announced many new initiatives on Tuesday. These new initiatives will help improve the efficiency of the manufacturing sector, quality of products and standardisation. 

The Director-General of BIS, Shri. P.K.Tiwari stated that BIS standard services will be available free of cost for everyone from now onwards. The BIS has around 21,000 Indian Standards. The objective of BIS is to ensure a genius standard for every product. The availability of Indian Standards is made free of cost for industry benefit, especially in the MSME sector. The Indian Standards can be downloaded from the Standardisation Portal of e-BIS.

The Director-General of BIS announced that several steps are taken to ease the compliance burden on stakeholders, such as:

• Reduction in Minimum Marketing fee, i.e. 50% for startups and micro-industry, woman entrepreneurs and additional 10% rebate for old license holders,
• Automation of the entire process of BIS certification,
• Strict timelines for the disposal of applications,
• Real-time monitoring of compliances, and
• Introduction of a system of automatic renewal of licenses.

The automation of the entire BIS certification process includes the grant and renewal of licenses through the Manak Online Portal of e-BIS. The BIS certification’s simplified process covers more than 80% of products, and the BIS will issue licenses to manufacture these products in one month. As a result of these initiatives, there can be disposal of more than 90% of applications within the prescribed time limit.

The BIS has also taken steps for ensuring a transparent and credible process in hallmarking gold jewellery and artefacts. These steps include the automated and online jeweller registration system, a mobile app-based system for market surveillance and an audit of assaying and hallmarking centres. They also contain automation of the entire process of the assaying and hallmarking and launching of Certificate Course in Hallmarking for ensuring the availability of qualified human resources.

The Director-General of BIS launched the Scheme of One Nation One Standard for harmonising the standard formulation work taking place in various organisations. The market and factory surveillance are critical for creating quality consciousness in India. The BIS has taken up the following initiatives to strengthen the surveillance system: 

• Engaging two outside agencies for carrying out the Market Surveillance,
• Engaging five NABCB accredited agencies to carry out Factory Surveillance,
• Development of mobile app-based surveillance system for better speed and transparency,
• Introduction of a module for regular feeding of consignee details and production details on Manak Online, and
• Integrating ICEGATE of Customs with the Foreign Manufacturers Certification Module of e-BIS for surveillance of the imported goods.

The initiatives and steps undertaken by the BIS provide a lot of ease to the industries and startups. The facilitation of an automated system of the BIS certification and the availability of the free Indian Standards on the e-BIS portal will undoubtedly help the startups and manufacturers.

For any clarifications/feedback on the topic, please contact the writer at mayashree.acharya@cleartax.in