Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016 | 17 Jul 2019
The Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016 establishes the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India.
Bureau of Indian Standards Act
- BIS Act allows multiple types of simplified conformity assessment schemes including self-declaration of conformity.
- BIS act provides enabling provisions for making hallmarking of precious metal articles mandatory.
- The Act enables the Central Government to appoint any authority/agency, in addition to the BIS, to verify the conformity of products and services with the established standard and issue certificate of conformity.
- There is a provision for repair or recall, of the products (bearing Standard Mark) that do not conform to the relevant Indian Standard.
- New areas identified in standardization are:
- Alternate fuels
- E-mobility
- Medical Devices
- Smart Cities
- Digital Technologies (e.g. Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence, Block Chain etc.)
- New and Renewable energy.
Important initiatives for effective implementation of the BIS Act, 2016 are
- BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018 under the BIS act calls for Hallmarking of:
- Gold jewellery and gold artefacts
- Silver jewellery and silver artefacts
- Penal provisions for better and effective compliance have been made stringent under BIS (Hallmarking) Regulations, 2018.
Bureau of Indian Standards
- BIS is the National Standard Body of India for the harmonious development of the activities of standardization, marking and quality certification of goods.
- BIS has been providing traceability and tangibility benefits to the national economy in a number of ways by:
- Providing safe reliable quality goods.
- Minimizing health hazards to consumers.
- Promoting exports and imports substitute.
- Control over proliferation of varieties etc through standardization, certification and testing.