Ease of doing business for MSMEs: To further encourage micro enterprises towards product quality, the national standards body Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will provide 80 per cent concession to micro units on their certification/minimum marking fee across various product certification schemes of BIS, Consumer Affairs minister Piyush Goyal said chairing a meeting to review BIS activities on Friday. Moreover, units based in the Northeast will continue to receive an extra 10 per cent concession, he said.
Importantly, the government had slashed the annual minimum marking fee by 50 per cent for micro enterprises and also startups and women entrepreneurs in 2021, Goyal had tweeted back then. BIS works to ensure uniform standards in product quality, perform product testing, and issue licenses to indicate that products are certified as per its standards.
According to the BIS fee structure, a new license involves Rs 1,000 as an application fee along with an inspection fee of Rs 7,000 per man day before the preliminary inspection visit by BIS. Post BIS decision to grant the license, the applicant is required to pay an annual license fee of Rs 1000 along with the minimum marking fee specified for the product. The minimum marking fee for each product differs.
“We are committed to ensuring that all products in India meet the highest quality and safety standards. These measures shall promote micro scale units, enhance the testing infrastructure, and develop a culture of quality consciousness among citizens,” said Goyal.
The minister also directed BIS to increase the frequency of product testing and market surveillance depending on the criticality of components used for consumer safety. Goyal further asked BIS to map standards against various government schemes and produce booklets in simple and local languages to enhance accessibility and develop a culture of quality consciousness among citizens. He noted that BIS has proposed Quality Control Orders (QCO) for 663 products in the coming time from the current 462 products covered under QCOs.
Meanwhile, BIS in December last year had published an Indian Standard, IS 19000:2022 for organizations publishing consumer reviews online including suppliers or sellers of products and services that collect reviews from their own customers, a third-party contracted by the suppliers/sellers or an independent third party. The standard is expected to benefit all stakeholders in the e-commerce ecosystem, that is, consumers, e-commerce platforms, sellers etc., it said.