Friday, September 27, 2013: The Government of India has extended the deadline for Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification with respect to imported electronics products till January next year. In case the government would have gone with its earlier deadline of October 3, then it would have adversely affected supplies. Now, hardware sellers and consumers will get a big relief owing to the extension of the deadline.
In order to address the issue of certification, Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications & IT held a meeting with the representatives of the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT). As per reports of The Times of India, three big US trade bodies also objected to the October 3 deadline.
Initially, 3 April was the certification deadline fixed by the government, then the deadline was extended to 3 July, again the deadline was extended to 3 October. Owing to industry protests, and the fact that BIS failed to set up the testing infrastructure required to provide timely certifications, the extensions became unavoidable. Moreover, BIS is yet to certify various products submitted few months ago for certification.
The government has given permission to electronics hardware manufacturers to import products on the basis of producing a self declared certificate, whereby they need to mention that their products are being tested in government-certified labs.
In addition to it, the government has also granted permission to manufacturers to label their products (after the certification) in their warehouses instead of carrying this out at the port of entry. Lack of adequate infrastructure and personnel at ports for the labeling of several batches of products has added to the woes of the importers.
The Compulsory Registration Order issued by the Indian government last year mandated that 15 categories of electronic and IT products must be registered under the BIS.
