Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Nidhi Khare today said that quality is not merely a manufacturing objective but the foundation of consumer trust. She was addressing the FICCI-BIS conference on ‘Quality Systems for Global Manufacturing Competitiveness in New Delhi. The Secretary said that the competitiveness of a nation will depend on the ability to build resilient and future ready manufacturing eco-systems in this era of AI, advanced automation, smart supply chains and data driven production systems. She highlighted that India needs to focus on becoming the quality leader for the global markets for the next 25 years. Ms Khare said that the country is steadily emerging as a preferred global manufacturing destination under the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India 2.0. Ms Khare underlined that the manufacturing sector will play a pivotal role in achieving the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. She said that the government is working towards providing Ease of Doing Business along with decriminalizing various laws to promote private sector to set-up their own cluster-based testing infrastructure.
Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Sanjay Garg said that in today’s era of interconnected global economy, quality is necessary for survival and growth. He further emphasized creating more consumer awareness regarding quality and standards. Mr Garg stated that BIS has published over 24 thousand standards out of which around 11 thousand standards are product standards and rest includes testing and other standards. He also mentioned that around 94 per cent of Indian standards are aligned to global standards and efforts are being made to align more standards to global benchmarks. Mr Garg said that Mandatory Hallmarking of Gold Jewellery was introduced in June 2021 and today there are over 2.2 lakh BIS Registered Jewellers. He added that there are around 1,600 hallmarking centres across the country.
