Bureau of Indian Standards


The Bureau of Indian Standards is the national Standards Body of India working under the aegis of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Government of India. It is established by the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986 which came into effect on 23 December 1986. The Minister in charge of the Ministry or Department having administrative control of the BIS is the ex-officio President of the BIS.
FSSAI has set certain guidelines for food safety research. The Research and Development division is responsible for research with the following objectives:
  1. Generate new knowledge that would help in continuously updating and upgrading food safety standards which are compatible with international organizations
  2. Carry out evidence based studies for improving or building policies.
The organisation was formerly the Indian Standards Institution, set up under the Resolution of the Department of Industries and Supplies No. 1 Std./45, dated 3 September 1946. The ISI was registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
A new Bureau of Indian standards Act 2016 which was notified on 22 March 2016, has been brought into force with effect from 12 October 2017. The Act establishes the Bureau of Indian Standards as the National Standards Body of India.
As a corporate body, it has 25 members drawn from Central or State Governments, industry, scientific and research institutions, and consumer organisations. Its headquarters are in New Delhi, with regional offices in Eastern Region at Kolkata, southern Region at Chennai, Western Region at Mumbai, Northern Region at Chandigarh and Central Region at Delhi and 20 branch offices. It also works as WTO-TBT enquiry point for India.

Regulatory Framework

National Building Code of India, 2005

It is a comprehensive building code for regulating the building construction activities across the country which was first published in 1970. Preliminary Draft Amendment No. 1 to NBC 2005 Part 11 "Approach to Sustainability" was put into circulation a preliminary draft amendment and BIS accepted the feedback from people till 15 March 2013.
See attachments

Indian Standards Bill, 2015

The Bill was passed on 8 March 2016 by the Rajya Sabha. The new Bill will repeal the existing Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986. The main objectives of the proposed legislation are:

National Institute of Training for Standardization (NITS)

It is a training institute of BIS which is set up in 1995. It is functioning from Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. The primary activities of NITS are:-

Laboratories

To support the activities of product certification, BIS has a chain of 8 laboratories. These laboratories have established testing facilities for products of chemical, food, electrical and mechanical disciplines. Approximately, 25000 samples are being tested in the BIS laboratories every year. In certain cases where it is economically not feasible to develop test facilities in BIS laboratories and also for other reasons like overloading of samples, equipment being out of order, the services of outside approved laboratories are also being availed. Except for the two labs, all the other labs are NABL accredited. It operates a laboratory recognition scheme also.

Small Scale Industry Facilitation Cell

SSI Facilitation Cell became operational since 26 May 1997. The aim of the Cell is to assist the small scale entrepreneurs who are backbone of the Indian industry. It has an incentive scheme to promote such units to get certified with ISI Mark.

Grievance Cell

If any customer reports about the degraded quality of any certified product at Grievance Cell, BIS HQs, BIS gives redressal to the customer.

Collaboration with international standards bodies

BIS is a founder member of International Organisation for Standardization. It represents India in the International Organization for Standardization, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the World Standards Service Network.

Activities

Standard formulation and promotion

One of the major functions of the Bureau is the formulation, recognition and promotion of the Indian Standards. As on 1 January 2019, over 20,000 Standards have been formulated by BIS, are in force. These cover important segments of economy, which help the industry in upgrading the quality of their products and services.
BIS has identified 15 sectors which are important to Indian Industry. For formulation of Indian Standard, it has separate Division Council to oversee and supervise the work. The Standards are regularly reviewed and formulated in line with the technological development to maintain harmony with the International Standards.

Product Certification

For Indian manufacturers

Product Certifications are to be obtained voluntarily. For, some of the products like Milk powder, Drinking Water, LPG Cylinders, etc., certification is mandatory. Because these products are concerned with health and safety.

For foreign manufacturers

Foreign manufacturers of products who intend to export to India also may obtain a BIS product certification license. For some products various Indian government ministries/departments/agencies makes its compulsory to have BIS certification. Towards this, BIS launched its Product Certification Scheme for overseas manufacturers in the year 2000, which is called Foreign Manufacturers Certification Scheme. Under the provisions of this scheme, foreign manufacturers can seek certification from BIS for marking their product with BIS Standard Mark. The foreign manufacturer needs to appoint an Authorised Indian Representative who will be an Indian Resident to act as an agent between BIS and the manufacturer.
Depending on the product, the manufacturer has to imprint one of two possible marks on the product label. The Standard Mark or the ISI Mark.
The Standard Mark is compulsory for certain types of electronics and IT goods, whereas the ISI mark is mandatory for product categories such as cement, household electrical products, food products, steel materials, etc. The ISI mark is also used for several voluntary BIS certification product categories.

For Indian importers

Indian importers who intend to get Certification Mark may apply for the license. However, the assessment visit is paid to the original product manufacturer.

Management System Certification