BUREAU OF INDIAN

STANDARDS https://consumeraffairs.nic.in/or
ganisation-and-units/division/bu
reau-indian-standards
BIS
Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) came into existence, through an act of
parliament dated 26 November 1986, with a broadened scope and more powers
taking over the staff, assets, liabilities and functions of erstwhile ISI.
Through this change over, the government envisaged building a climate for
quality culture and consciousness and greater participation of consumers in
formulation and implementation of national standards.
The Bureau is a Body Corporate consisting of 25 members representing both
Central and State governments, Members of Parliament, industry, scientific
and research institutions, consumer organizations and professional bodies;
with Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution as its
President and with Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public
Distribution as its Vice-President.
BUREAU OF INDIAN
STANDARDS (BIS)
The Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, has been implemented
since 12 October 2017.
Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is the National Standard Body of
India.
BIS is responsible for the harmonious development of the activities of
standardization, marking and quality certification of goods and for
matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. 
 BIS – CORE ACTIVITIES
BIS through its core activities of standardization and conformity assessment, has
been benefiting the national economy by
providing safe, reliable and quality goods;
minimizing health hazards to consumers;
protecting the environment, promoting exports and imports substitute;
controlling over proliferation of varieties etc.
The standards and certification scheme of BIS apart from benefitting the
consumers and industry also support various public policies especially in areas of
product safety, consumer protection, food safety, environment protection,
building and construction, etc.
CONTD.
In recent years, BIS has worked towards specifically addressing
various national priorities and other government initiatives like
Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, Make in India and ease of doing
business through its activities of standardization and certification.
In standards development, BIS continues to address issues of
technology changes and advancements, climate change,
environment and energy conservation, conditions of health and
safety and facilitation of trade.
In the area of conformity assessment BIS is working towards making
the processes simpler and faster.
STATUTORY FRAMEWORK
The highlights of the new BIS Act are:
Positions BIS as the National Standards Body.
Allows multiple conformity assessment schemes in line with global practices.
Enables the Government to authorize any agency apart from BIS to certify and enforce
conformity to a standard.
Enables the Government to include products under mandatory certification on grounds
of health, safety, environment, national security and prevention of deceptive practices.
Enables the Government to bring Hallmarking of precious metal articles under
mandatory certification.
Provides consumer protection measures like recall of non-conforming standard marked
products, compensation to the consumer and more stringent penal provisions.
OBJECTIVES OF BIS

Harmonious development of the activities of standardization,

marking and quality certification of goods
To provide thrust to standardization and quality control for
growth and development of industry on one hand and to meet the
needs of consumers on the other.
ORGANIZATIONAL
NETWORK
BIS has its Headquarters at New Delhi. It has 5 Regional Offices (ROs)
located at Kolkata (Eastern), Chennai (Southern), Mumbai (Western),
Chandigarh (Northern) and Delhi (Central).
Under the Regional Offices are the Branch Offices (BOs).
There are 33 BOs located at 28 different locations namely Ahmedabad,
Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore,
Dehradun, Delhi, Durgapur, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Guwahati, Hyderabad,
Jaipur, Jammu, Jamshedpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur,
Parwanoo, Patna, Pune, Raipur, Rajkot and Vishakhapatnam.
The BOs serve as an effective link between State Governments, industries,
technical institutions, consumer organizations, etc., of the region.
MANDATORY PRODUCTS FOR
CERTIFICATION
The ISI mark is both mandatory and voluntary.
Some mandatory ISI certification products include Cement, Electrical
Appliances, LPG Cylinder, Batteries, Oil Pressure Stove, Automobile
Accessories, Medical Equipment, Steel Products, Stainless Steel,
Chemicals, Fertilizers,  Infant Foods and Packaged Drinking  Water.
ACTIVITIES
The activities of BIS can be broadly grouped under the following heads:
Standards formulation
International activities
Product Certification
Hallmarking
Laboratory services
Training services - National Institute of Training for Standardisation
Consumer Affairs and Publicity
STANDARDS FORMULATION
BIS formulates Indian Standards in line with the national priorities for various
sectors that have been grouped under 14 Departments like Chemicals, Food and
Agriculture, Civil, Electro-technical, Electronics & Information Technology,
Mechanical Engineering, Management & Systems, Metallurgical Engineering,
Petroleum Coal & Related Products, Medical Equipment and Hospital Planning,
Textile, Transport Engineering, Production & General Engineering and Water
Resources.
Corresponding to these Departments fourteen Division Councils exist.
Each Division Council has a number of Sectional committees working under it.
The standards cover important segments of economy and help the industry in
upgrading the quality of their goods and services.
INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)- ISO is an independent,
non-governmental membership organization and the world’s largest developer of
voluntary International Standards. BIS is a founder member of ISO and is
actively involved in development of International Standards by acting as
Participating (P) member or Observer (O) member on various Technical Committees,
Sub-Committees, Working Groups, etc.
International Electro-technical Commission (IEC)- IEC was founded in 1906 and
is the world’s leading organization for the preparation and publication of
International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies.
India is represented in IEC through BIS.
CONT.
Regional and Bilateral Cooperation- BIS is actively involved in the
Regional and Bi-lateral Co-operation Programmes pertaining to
standardization, testing, certification, training etc. So far, BIS has signed
several MoUs with national standards bodies of various countries. BIS also
plays an active role in formulation and implementation of regional standards
and on conformity assessment scheme for the SAARC countries under the
South Asian Regional Standards Organization (SARSO).
World Trade Organisation – Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT)
Matters - BIS is the National Enquiry Point for WTO -TBT.
PRODUCT CERTIFICATION
BIS operates a Product Certification scheme for ensuring compliance to
Indian Standards.
Presence of BIS standard mark (popularly known as ISI mark) on a product
indicates conformity to the relevant Indian Standard.
Before granting licence to any manufacturer, BIS ascertains the availability
of required infrastructure and capability of the manufacturer to produce and
test the product conforming to the relevant Indian Standard on a continuous
basis.
The BIS certification scheme is voluntary in nature. However for a number
of products, compliance to Indian Standards made mandatory by the
Central Government under various statutes in public interest.
Foreign Manufactures Certification Scheme
(FMCS)

BIS has been operating a separate scheme for foreign manufacturers in order
to certify goods manufactured outside India.
Under this scheme, foreign manufacturers can seek certification from BIS for
marking their product(s) with BIS Standard Mark after ensuring conformity
of the products to relevant Indian Standard(s).  
Registration Scheme For Self Declaration Of
Conformity
Registration Scheme operated by BIS is a simplified process of conformity
assessment. In this this scheme a manufacturer himself makes a declaration that his
product conforms to the Indian Standard.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has notified
"Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirements for Compulsory
Registration) Order, 2012" on 3 Oct 2012 mandating Compulsory Registration
from BIS for Electronics and Information Technology (IT) products.
BIS had also notified a separate ‘Standard Mark’ for the Registration Scheme.
HALLMARKING
Hallmarking of Jewellery
Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery was started by BIS in April 2000 to provide third
party assurance to consumers on the purity of gold jewellery or its fineness. 
The scheme for Hallmarking of Silver Jewellery / artefacts was launched in October
2005.
Under the hallmarking scheme, the jewellers are granted certificate of registration to
sell hallmarked jewellery and Assaying & Hallmarking (A&H) centres are
recognized to assay the purity of the jewellery submitted by the registered jeweller
along with declaration of purity and apply hallmark on such jewellery which is
found conforming to relevant Indian Standard including declared fineness.  
LABORATORY
To cater to the needs of testing for certification activity, BIS has established eight
laboratories in the country namely
Central Laboratory (CL), Sahibabad;
Western Regional Office Laboratory (WROL), Mumbai;
Northern Regional Office Laboratory (NROL), Mohali;
Eastern Regional Office Laboratory (EROL), Kolkata;
Southern Regional Office Laboratory (SROL), Chennai;
Bangalore Branch Office Laboratory (BNBOL), Bangalore;
Patna Branch Office Laboratory (PBOL), Patna;
Guwahati Branch Office Laboratory (GBOL), Guwahati.
In addition, BIS also has a Gold Referral Assaying Laboratory at Chennai for
testing of samples.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TRAINING
FOR STANDARDIZATION (NITS)

BIS imparts training through NITS to the technical and management

personnel from industry, consumer organizations, public sector undertakings,
govt. bodies and developing countries.
The institute also conducts International Training Programmes (ITP) for
developing countries under different cooperation schemes of Government of
India
CONSUMER AFFAIRS AND PUBLICITY

BIS endeavours to create awareness and promote quality amongst all its
consumers through various awareness programmes:   
Consumer Awareness Programmes: For promoting the concept of standardization,
certification and quality consciousness among consumers, awareness programmes
are organized on a regular basis through various Regional offices and Branch
offices of BIS, sometimes in association with Consumer Organizations.         
Industry Awareness Programmes: To propagate the concept of standardization,
product certification, management systems certification and other BIS activities
amongst Industries, Industry Awareness Programmes are conducted by BIS. 
Educational Utilization of Standards Programmes: BIS organizes Educational
Utilization of Standards Programmes (EUS) for students and faculties of schools,
colleges etc., to inculcate the young minds with the concepts and benefits of
standardization.
CONTD.
World Standards Day: BIS celebrates the World Standards Day on 14th Oct to pay
tribute to the collaborative efforts of thousands of experts worldwide, which develop
voluntary technical agreements that are published as International or National
Standards. 
Public Grievances: Consumer complaints relating to BIS certified products are
reviewed and monitored regularly for redressal. 
Public Relations: The publicity activity of BIS is aimed at creating awareness for
various BIS activities among its target audience including the Industry and
common Consumer, significantly relating to Standardization, Certification of goods
& services and Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery.
BENEFITS OF CERTIFICATION

Manufacturers
–Improvement & consistency in quality ; Customer confidence and wider markets
Organized Purchasers
–Confidence in integrity of a product; Reduction in costly testing and inspection
Common Consumer
–Brand oriented selection, confidence in the purchase.
National Level
–Protection of consumer and environment; Improved public purchases and optimum
overall economy.
International Level
–Facilitation of international trade, mutual recognition and acceptance.