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Shri Sharad Pawar, Union Minister of Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution called upon manufacturers and exporters to comply fully with the quality standards for export of goods. In his message on World Standards Day seminar organized by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) here today the Minister pointed out that the country has to strictly adhere to foreign standards and quality expectations of consumers both in India and overseas. The Bureau of Indian Standards has taken a policy decision to broaden its standardization activity through the involvement of expert agencies and by making available the standards under formulation on the internet for public comment; the Minister informed and welcomed suggestions on improving standards on goods produced in the country.
Shri Taslimuddin, Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in his message which was read out on the occasion, mentioned that Government of India had constituted a Standing Committee for promotion of consumer interest in the fields of health, safety, misleading advertisements spurious products, medial devices etc. in order to protect the interest of the consumers.
In his inaugural address Shri L. Mansingh, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs said that the Department had initiated an inter-departmental dialogue for organizing a national system for having a common standard for each commodity, goods and services and BIS had to play a central role in its capacity as the national standards body. The Department is also considering evolving a multi agency approach for introducing mandatory compliance to standards in critical areas affecting public health and safety, which could be enforced by market forces.
Shri Mansingh expressed concern that the developing countries are using standards evolved on goods and services as a real barrier against trading with developing countries. In fact development of standards should be an endeavour by the Governments, corporates, non-governmental organizations and consumer. The Secretary also informed that BIS has initiated the task of communicating information related to standards in six identified areas like water and sanitation, Soil management, health and nutrition, environment & biodiversity conservation, disaster preparedness and empowerment through information technology.
Earlier, in his welcome speech Shri Nirmal Singh, Director General of BIS informed about the new initiatives taken by BIS for enhancing the connectivity of interest groups in standardization which include outsourcing of standards formulation activity; decentralization of standards formulation activity by shifting of Technical Committees to Regional Offices and Branch Offices; reduction in average time taken for standards formulation; comprehensive review of National Building Code and National Electrical Code.
This is the 35th World Standards Day and the theme of this year’s celebrations is “Standards Connect the World”.
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