Govt to make mandatory standards for 40 more chemicals to check fake products

To curb production and sale of spurious chemicals, the government Tuesday said it will make compliance of quality standards compulsory for 40 more chemicals that are locally-manufactured as well as imported.

Chemicals and Petrochemicals Secretary P Raghavendra Rao said government is also expected to soon introduce Harmonised System (HS) of coding for chemicals and petrochemicals imported in large volumes.

Currently, there are no prescribed mandatory standards and HS coding for chemicals and petrochemicals in the country. However recently for the first time, the government made standards compulsory for caustic soda.

HS coding is a standardised international system to classify globally traded products.

"We have already introduced mandatory standards for caustic soda. We are going to do it for more chemicals. We have identified 40 chemicals and the works is in progress," Rao told PTI on the sidelines of a Ficci event.

The government's aim in the next five years is to make mandatory standards for major chemicals that are manufactured locally as well as imported, he said.

Stating that making quality standards is a big process, Rao said, "standards cannot be introduced just like that. We have to take concurrence of the WTO and other countries. Otherwise, they will object."
Expressing concern over huge import of chemicals and petrochemicals, the Secretary said, "we import 25 per cent of the domestic requirement. We need to take steps to ensure non-essential imports come down and domestic production goes up."