The customs department is closely monitoring and working to address the problem of import of toys that do not meet Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms. In a tweet on Saturday, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said the customs department is engaged with both the BIS and the Directorate General of Foreign Trade to thwart attempts of circumventing quality control and safety checks.
“Newer modus operandi adopted to circumvent the BIS restrictions by way of import of parts of toys, staggered imports of such parts through different ports and mis-declaration of toys and their parts as entirely different items is continuously tackled and the customs is also engaged with both BIS and DGFT to thwart such attempts at circumventing the restrictions,” CBIC said in reply to a tweet by an individual who questioned how customs clearance was obtained for import of toys that did not have the BIS quality mark.
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BIS director-general Pramod Kumar Tiwari had recently said the government had seized about 16,000 toys in the past one month from major retail stores, including Hamleys and Archies, that did not have the BIS quality mark. Effective January 1, 2021, the government has made it mandatory for toys to conform with safety norms specified by the BIS, which is the national standard setting body.
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The seized toys were locally manufactured as well as imported. Some did not have the mandatory BIS quality mark while some had fake BIS licence numbers and others had ‘origin of other countries’.