Indian Standards System: Introduction
The Indian standards system is coordinated by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), a governmental organization under the Indian Ministry for Consumer Affairs.
BIS is a corporate organization that consists of 25 members representing both Central and State governments, Members of Parliament, industry, scientific and research institutions, consumer organizations and professional bodies.
The
standardization process in India
follows the basic principles for standards development outlined by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT). BIS oversees the development of Indian Standards (IS), coordinating
input from various public and private sector stakeholders through its technical
committees. Today there are over 20,000 IS in the Indian market. In addition to
IS, many other types of standards are used in India, including those developed
by ISO, IEC and other international standards developers, regional standards,
foreign national standards, and others.
The Indian
industry is highly engaged in the Indian standardization system, participating
in the development of national and international standards. The Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII), is particularly active in supporting BIS, encouraging
industry input and participation into the Indian standards system. In addition to BIS, India has several other standards developing organizations (SDOs) and conformity assessment bodies (CABS)
that respectively formulate sector specific standards and certify products and services per standards other than Indian standards.
Standards Used in India
