Till date there was no legitimate policy set in place to measure the standard of electronics goods manufacturers (like laptop, desktop, printer). Come April 2013, these will have to be certified from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in order to sell in the country.
According to a report in Business Standard the government has made it mandatory for all electronics goods manufacturer in the country to get standard compliant certificate from the BIS. It will be applicable for electronic products imported or manufactured after April 2013. This is the first time India is imposing its own standards on global products.
“Around 30 to 40 per cent of the overall electronics market in India is now grey market. Some of them are sub-standard products. To safeguard the consumers, we have made it mandatory for the electronics manufacturer to get a standard complaint certificate before selling it in the market,” said a senior official of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTy). The department had issued an order pertaining to this earlier this year.
According to this order, sellers of products like laptops, tablets, LCD, LED televisions, optical disc players, microwave ovens, printers, scanners, wireless keyboards, video monitors, telephone answering machines, amplifiers, musical systems, electronic clocks will be required to obtain standard compliant certificates before selling in India.
The second phase of the order will comprise mobile phones and some other electronics goods, which will have to comply with the new standard. The standards have been set by a multi-stakeholders group comprising of members from the DeiTy, BIS and others.
The manufacturers will have to send the products to the accredited laboratories that will conduct the tests and send the report to the BIS who will issue the certificates. “If the products failed to meet the standards, the manufacturers will have to deform the items beyond use and disposed it off as scrap,” he added.
Designated officials from the DeiTy will also have the powers to inspect, enter and search any premises and seize electronic goods, which they believe are not complying with the standard.
According to the data by Electronics Industries Association of India (ELCINA), electronics products market in India is expected to touch $ 158 billion by 2015.
