BIS Reaches Out to Developing Nations for Adoption of Indian Standards

NEW DELHI: Seeking to expand acceptability of Indian Standards in other countries, the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) has started providing complimentary copies of the Indian Standards for reference and adoption purposes to some of the developing and least developed countries such as Suriname, Indonesia and Uzbekistan.
The BIS is also in talks with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Slovenia for virtual meetings on this issue, a government official said.

“The BIS has shared the Indian Standards catalogue and guidelines for adoption of Indian Standards with National Standards Bodies (NSBs) of 21 countries with whom India has cooperation arrangements,” a senior government official said. The BIS has published over 20,000 Indian Standards encompassing various sectors and around 15,000 of these are indigenous standards.
The official said to create awareness on indigenous Indian Standards among developing and least developed countries and to encourage them to use these wherever suitable, the consumer affairs ministry has urged the external affairs ministry to disseminate information on free availability of indigenous Indian Standards in countries through Indian missions.

“In response to our initiative for promotion of Indian Standards, we have started receiving requests for virtual meetings to discuss the issue and to explore possibilities for future collaborations. We have held virtual meetings with the national standards bodies of Suriname and Indonesia; and scheduled meetings with the NSBs of Uzbekistan. Further, we are in discussion with countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Slovenia to fix the dates for virtual meetings,” a consumer affairs ministry spokesperson said.
He added that BIS has received requests from the NSBs of Haiti and Democratic Republic of the Congo for considering cooperation arrangements with BIS in the field of standardisation and conformity assessment. “We have considered their proposals and sent draft documents through diplomatic channels to them for their consideration and concurrence,” the spokesperson said.

Source: ToI