Govt notifies standards for mobile phones, 14 other electronic items

The government has notified mandatory standards for 15 electronic products, including mobile phones, power banks, LED lamps, to curb flow of low quality items in the country.

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology notified standards for products on November 7 and companies selling these products will have six months to comply with the norms.

Apart from mobile phones, the list also includes power adaptor (or chargers) for IT products, audio, video and other similar electronic products, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), alkaline batteries or other non-acid portable batteries, cash registers, copying machines, smart card readers, passport reader, point of sales machines etc.

"Within a fortnight of noticing industry's concern, my ministry has notified standards for electronic products including mobile phones. This is a message to the world on how quickly new government responds to their concerns," Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told PTI.

"This notification helps government in curbing poor quality products as well as ensure safety for public," Prasad said.

In October last year, DEITY had made it mandatory for 15 products including video games, laptop, notebook, tablet PC, Plasma/LCD/LED televisions, microwave ovens, printers and scanners, telephone answering machines, electronic musical systems etc to comply with standards notified by it.

"Indian standards notified by DEITY are in in line with global standards. Companies have six month time to tune their product as per the notified standard," DEITY Joint Secretary Ajay Kumar said.

The Indian Cellular Association said that these standards were long-awaited and will help in boosting the organised sector business. "The only thing we want is that the compliance should be largely voluntarily in nature," the association said.