Wednesday, May 14, 2014: Expressing their ire over the recent directive by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) that asks sellers of products such as tablets and laptops to emboss or screen print the quality certification on each product, the industry has hit back at BIS calling it impractical and impossible to comply with. Even as the June deadline set by BIS to carry out labelling of certified electronics draws near, the stalemate could eventually lead to a blackout situation in the country.
The industry contends that it is impossible to carry the labelling procedure as directed by BIS, the reason being a major portion of electronics is imported from countries like Taiwan and China rather than being manufactured domestically. Instead of emboss or screen printing, the industry believes that pasting of labels could be a more viable alternative for them. However, the same has been met with a cold response from BIS. BIS argues the step is directed towards ensuring high level of compliance.
According to BIS, India is fast becoming a dumping ground for electronic waste globally, as such it is now important to ensure some restraint to get things right. Also, the process of screen printing is not as expensive an affair as the industry claims it to be, says BIS. The department of electronics and IT had earlier made it mandatory for 16 categories of electronic products to get BIS certification.
