IIP to formulate product packaging standard for domestic market

The Indian Institute of Packaging is all set to develop a "product packaging standard" for the domestic market.

IIP, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Commerce which certifies packaging of export market products, would soon make a presentation to a high-level committee of the Ministry in this regard to formulate such product packaging standard, IIP Director N C Saha told PTI.

This was decided in a recent meeting held at IIP here with the Ministry officials, headed by its director Mugdha Sinha, he said.

While IIP has been a certifying body for packaging of export markets, it doesn't still have any say in packaging standards for domestic markets, Saha added.

It was decided that a committee will be constituted under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary, where all the chairpersons of various commodity boards like Tea Board, Coffee Board, Spices Board, will be invited to participate and IIP will be the nodal organisation, he said.

"IIP will give a presentation to this committee on developing a product packaging standard, which is currently missing for the Indian domestic market," he said.

According to the statistics of Pharma packaging exports, 55 per cent is under regulated market, out of which 30 per cent is for the US and 25 per cent is for the EU (European Union) and the balance 45 per cent is of unregulated or semi-regulated market.

On this, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce & Industries, Sudhanshu Pandey, said, "IIP should conduct some study for this balance of unregulated and semi-regulated markets."

In response to this, Saha said IIP will submit a proposal to the Ministry.

Meanwhile, Sinha told PTI, "Commerce Ministry has taken such an initiative and a committee will be constituted where standards of product packaging will be discussed. Taking this ahead, IIP will be making a presentation on going ahead about formulating standard for domestic markets as well.

Most of the standards that were formulated earlier were need-based at that time and a lot of knowledge that we have acquired today wasn't available then. Therefore, these standards need to change, Sinha said.

"We need to link the packaging standards to domestic markets also and not only limit to exports. We believe what we are doing for exporters, we would also like to do for our domestic businesses," she added.

"Whatever standards that were developed by IIP so far were done for the export market only and there are no packaging standards for the domestic market. However, IIP will work towards formulating standards for Indian domestic market too as the commerce ministry's interest is not only for exports but also for domestic markets," said Saha.

IIP is closely linked with major international packaging organisations world over like the World Packaging Organisation (WPO), Asian Packaging Federation (APF), International Trade Centre (ITC).

Its activities includes training and education, organising Seminars, conferences and exhibitions, awards, consultancy and projects.