Tuesday, October 08, 2013: In order to benefit the industry, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, has relaxed a few norms, following the extension of the deadline for Compulsory Registration Order (CRO) for IT products from October 3, 2013 to January 3, 2014.
The notification issued by the government, which was shared on 30 September, states that manufacturers and authorized importers will be allowed to import goods into the country without BIS certificate labels. They can now label the products in India at the local manufacturing unit or their warehouse. Earlier, the companies had to label their products with BIS certified stickers in their offshore factories or warehouses before they were imported to India.
According to the new notification, manufacturers and authorized importers, who have already received BIS certifications for their products, will have to produce a self-declaration form along with a letter from BIS for importing goods without BIS-approved stickers, reported CRN.in.
Anwar Shirpurwala, executive director, MAIT said, “This is a welcome move. Depending on the logistics arrangement of the manufacturer, they could end up saving 2-6 weeks in reaching the products to end-users.”
As per estimates done by manufacturers, in the earlier model, the supply chain cycle would have needed anything between 4-10 weeks to get the CRO clearance and certifications, put the products into mass production, affix the necessary certifications or labels and ship them into the country, said the report. However, this new change would even allow manufacturer to plan production, and apply for BIS certification, in parallel, which would help the vendor reach products faster to customers,” Shirpurwala told CRN.in.
