World-class product certification needed, says Paswan

India needs to develop an excellent product certification comparable to world standards to make Indian good acceptable worldwide, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs and Food and Civil Supplies Ram Vilas Paswan said here Monday.

"In fact, this is a pre-requisite for the prime minister's ambitious 'Make In India' campaign to succeed," he said.

Paswan said that presently, the Bureau of Indian Standards has formulated 19,000 standards of which 6,000 are internationally comparable, and BIS certifies 933 products with the ISI mark.

Presently ISI certification is compulsoary for 123 products, but there is a need to increase the number, especially public health products like bottled drinking water, which should be brought under ISI ambit to boost consumer confidence, he added.

Similarly, Paswan said hallmarking of gold and silver jewellery by clearly giving the information on the purity of metals used.

He called for an urgent revamp and increasing scale of activities of BIS in tune with the changing times, slashing time for certification procedures, setting up state-of-the-art testing equipment and motivating industry trendsetters to opt for ISI certification.

Stressing that the government was committed to consumer protection, Paswan sought more powers for the consumer protection authoritees and forums besides a broad based redressal mechanism by inducting people from different walks of life, besides those from the judiciary or legal background.

"A broad-based Consumer Protection Authority will be set up which will be empowered to take suomoto action against violating companies by making amendments to the Consumer Protect Act and make the redressal mechanism simple and universally accessible," he said.

Lashing out at companies resorting to misleading advertisements, he said that an inter-ministerial committee, with representatives from the ministries of information and broadcasting and health and family welfare has been set up to look into the matter.

Paswan admitted that the consumer awareness level was low in India, but campaigns like 'Jaago Grahak Jaago' have succeeded in making a good beginning.

Paswan is currently on a two-day visit to Maharashtra and took stock of BIS activities with its director general M.J. Joseph.

He called upon BIS to launch massive consumer awareness programmes in regional languages and use the social media for the purpose.