Time to rethink India's quality standard system and its framework

India’s approach to enforcing product standards through quality control orders (QCOs) under the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act has rapidly expanded over the past decade, now covering over 800 product categories. This surge in mandatory regulation reflects a recognition of historical gaps in consumer protection and a growing desire to safeguard domestic producers from the influx of substandard imports. However, beneath the intent to protect public health and foster quality lies a complex and often problematic reality: India’s regulatory framework — centred on BIS as a combined standard-setter, certifier, and enforcer — risks undermining both industry competitiveness and consumer welfare. 

A 2016 amendment to the BIS Act broadened the government’s authority to mandate compliance with compulsory standards. This shift was principally motivated by international trade considerations, as QCOs proved useful tools for protecting domestic producers and managing the growing trade deficit. Indian products faced strict technical regulations, particularly in developed markets, while imports into India encountered limited technical countermeasures. QCOs thus emerged as strategic levers to level the playing field. QCOs may have grown out of trade challenges, but their rationale as instruments of consumer protection cannot be overstated. 

While legitimate objectives underpin the drive to enhance technical regulations, India’s regulatory model raises serious questions. The BIS — a body historically designed as a national standards organisation tasked with voluntary standardisation and certification — has been entrusted simultaneously with standard-setting, certification issuance, and enforcement of compliance. This consolidation of roles conflicts with international best practices and guidelines such as those of the World Trade Organization’s Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, which advocate institutional separation to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure transparency. 

In most advanced economies, these roles are distinct. Regulatory agencies create and enforce mandatory technical regulations, national standards bodies develop voluntary standards often aligned with international frameworks, and accredited third-party conformity assessment bodies increasingly undertake product certification and testing. Notably, the national standards bodies in developed economies like the United States and most European countries are industry-led and private, and cannot conceivably be vested with a regulatory role. This is in contrast to such bodies in developing, low-knowledge economies, where these are governmental and are hubs of regulation. This functional separation enhances credibility, prevents dominance of a single agency, and facilitates mutual recognition agreements with foreign regulators — enabling smoother export and import processes. 

India’s BIS-centric model contrasts sharply with this approach. By being the standard-setter, certifier, and enforcer, BIS faces a conflict between promoting standards and imposing punitive enforcement powers. For manufacturers, especially micro, small and medium enterprises, this model translates into onerous compliance costs. The lack of differentiation in compliance rigour between high-risk consumer products and industrial B2B products based on risk, further exacerbates economic inefficiency.

Moreover, India’s enforcement infrastructure is stretched thin. Market surveillance conducted by BIS lacks systematic capacity, resulting in inconsistent follow-up and weak deterrence. Contrast this with more mature regimes where independent market surveillance agencies work closely but separately from certification bodies, leading to more effective enforcement and consumer protection. 

Unlike several neighbouring countries that have secured international accreditation for certification by their standards bodies — a prerequisite for mutual recognition agreements — BIS has so far not taken accreditation under applicable international standard- ISO/IEC 17065. Consequently, Indian certifications are often not accepted abroad, forcing exporters to repeat testing and certification processes, which adds cost and delay. India’s inability to pursue mutual recognition agreements with major trade partners consequently weakens export competitiveness and undermines the stated goal of QCOs as trade enablers. 

India’s regulatory strategy also needs proper alignment with complementary institutional mechanisms for comprehensive skills development, financial capacity building, and stakeholder involvement. Despite these challenges, the rationale for technical regulation remains compelling and essential. Inadequate product safety standards expose consumers to hazards and create unfair competition that disadvantages producers committed to quality. The Indian toy industry offers a notable positive example: Implementation of QCOs has led to greater consumer confidence, reduced unsafe imports, and expanded the presence of certified domestic manufacturers in formal retail and e-commerce channels. 

To truly harness these benefits, however, India’s regulatory framework must evolve. A dedicated legal framework empowering multiple ministries to issue technical regulations under a harmonised system, rather than relying exclusively on amendments to a single Act, would better suit the needs of a rapidly growing economy. Legislating institutional separation between regulatory oversight, standards setting, and conformity assessment is critical. Adopting risk-based and flexible conformity assessment models will allow regulators to calibrate compliance requirements to product categories and enterprise capacities, thereby reducing unnecessary cost burdens. 

A systematic and institutionalised approach to regulatory impact assessments must be introduced to anticipate economic, social, and operational consequences before imposing new regulations. Such assessments, a mandatory exercise in Europe and some other developed economies, would prevent overregulation, duplication, and ensure proportionality.

Finally, governments can leverage public procurement platforms such as GeM to incentivise adherence to quality standards, providing market-based encouragement for marginal players to upgrade and innovate. 

India’s ambition to become a developed economy under its Viksit Bharat vision demands a modern, transparent, and internationally credible regulatory ecosystem. Adoption of a progressive quality ecosystem can help add greater value to products and services originating from India, enabling producers to earn higher returns from their offerings. QCOs can help achieve the Prime Minister’s vision of “Zero Defect and Zero Effect” if a thoughtful, coordinated, and bold reform agenda that untangles institutional conflicts, aligns policy with global best practices, and balances consumer interest with economic competitiveness, is rolled out. 

The authors are, respectively, distinguished fellow, visiting fellow, and research assistant at RIS.  The views are personal