Appraising the Role of Standardization in India's Economic Development

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00:00 To everyone,

00:00 first,

00:01 uh,

00:01 welcome to,

00:02 I think,

00:02 which is the 5th edition of the World Development Report Seminar Series.

00:07 Um,

00:08 today,

00:08 we're gonna zoom in on India's experience with standards and the implementation.

00:13 Um,

00:13 so I'm Philip Grinstead.

00:15 I'm a part of the WDR team,

00:17 uh,

00:17 working in the global team on private sector

00:19 competitiveness and leading the work on quality infrastructure,

00:23 um,

00:23 in the WDR.

00:25 Um,

00:26 and I'm really delighted to have,

00:27 um,

00:29 what I think is probably like the prime,

00:32 um,

00:32 expert actually on India's standards and quality infrastructure system,

00:37 uh,

00:37 with us today.

00:39 Uh,

00:39 so Anupam,

00:40 Anupam Kal is gonna,

00:42 uh,

00:42 give the presentation.

00:43 Anupam has a long career working in this field,

00:46 um,

00:46 and I think what,

00:47 what makes his experience especially interesting is that he

00:51 very well knows the work of the government.

00:54 So he was,

00:55 uh,

00:55 for many years at the Bureau of Indian Standards and various functions.

00:59 But he was also on the side of the industry,

01:01 um,

01:01 on the side of the Confederation of Indian Industries,

01:04 which is,

01:04 um,

01:05 one of the APEC industry associations in India.

01:08 where he led the quality,

01:10 quality work and was really like a driving force on the development of India's uh

01:15 quality infrastructure system and of course today still is,

01:18 uh,

01:19 very much so.

01:20 Um,

01:21 and so after Arup Pump's presentation,

01:24 uh,

01:24 we will have uh Devesh um give a um intervention.

01:29 So Devesh is the academic lead,

01:30 um,

01:31 at,

01:31 um,

01:32 uh,

01:32 on,

01:32 on the WEDR.

01:34 Uh,

01:35 just like very few points on housekeeping,

01:37 uh,

01:37 so for information,

01:38 this meeting is being recorded.

01:40 Um,

01:41 the,

01:41 uh,

01:41 presentation is gonna be approximately 30 minutes,

01:45 um,

01:45 so we're gonna have Q&A afterwards.

01:48 Um,

01:48 as I just said,

01:49 uh,

01:49 I think given this is a small group,

01:51 please

01:52 feel free to,

01:53 um,

01:53 raise your hand if you have like any

01:56 questions where you want to come in or like put it in the chat.

01:59 Um,

01:59 And maybe you want to also briefly introduce yourself uh when you ask a question,

02:04 so you know,

02:05 as we know who who you are.

02:07 Um,

02:08 but without further ado,

02:09 um,

02:09 I see more people joined,

02:11 so like,

02:11 uh,

02:11 welcome everyone who just,

02:12 uh,

02:13 joined.

02:13 Um,

02:14 let me hand over to Anna Pen

02:16 for the presentation.

02:20 Yeah,

02:20 thanks,

02:20 Philip.

02:21 Uh,

02:21 so,

02:23 and,

02:23 uh,

02:23 let me also welcome everyone from my,

02:25 my end,

02:26 and it's a,

02:26 it's a privilege to be talking to you on this subject,

02:29 uh,

02:30 which is,

02:30 uh,

02:31 about appraising the standards development in India

02:34 and how it actually helped in the economic development.

02:37 So I have a presentation and I'll upload it and then we can,

02:40 uh,

02:40 run it through,

02:42 uh,

02:42 yeah,

02:43 so give me a moment.

02:50 Mhm.

02:51 Yeah,

02:51 OK.

02:57 Let me know if it is uh

02:59 visible my screen.

03:01 Yes,

03:01 we can see it.

03:02 If you could,

03:03 um,

03:03 I'll do a presentation,

03:06 yeah,

03:06 just to.

03:07 So

03:11 You know,

03:11 um,

03:12 a bit of a difficult just,

03:13 yeah.

03:17 Yeah,

03:17 OK,

03:18 yes,

03:19 of course.

03:20 So,

03:20 OK,

03:20 thank you,

03:20 Philip,

03:21 and yeah,

03:21 so,

03:22 uh,

03:22 so this is the topic that we are going to be,

03:24 uh,

03:25 uh,

03:25 discussing,

03:26 appraising the role of standardization in India's economic development,

03:30 and,

03:30 uh,

03:30 this is how,

03:31 uh,

03:32 you know,

03:32 this presentation has been made and my talk will revolve around these

03:36 essentially how the standards have contributed to India's economic development.

03:40 How did we ensure compliance through voluntary and mandatory

03:44 regimes?

03:46 Also,

03:46 uh,

03:47 how did the,

03:48 uh,

03:48 quality infrastructure evolve,

03:50 uh,

03:51 together with the standards

03:52 and supported,

03:53 uh,

03:53 development?

03:55 And then what are the learning from,

03:56 uh,

03:57 from India.

03:57 India has been,

03:58 is a very diverse country.

04:00 It has a long history,

04:02 uh,

04:03 and,

04:03 uh,

04:04 multiple languages,

04:06 different,

04:06 uh,

04:07 uh,

04:07 economic segments.

04:09 So it's,

04:09 it's extremely diverse country.

04:11 So therefore,

04:12 uh,

04:12 uh,

04:12 it's,

04:13 it's a good case

04:14 to look at for,

04:15 uh.

04:16 For other countries as well,

04:17 developing countries.

04:19 So just to explain first of all what is quality infrastructure

04:23 and how it evolved in India,

04:24 so

04:25 for any,

04:26 any country,

04:27 uh,

04:27 quality infrastructure denotes.

04:29 Uh,

04:30 it's,

04:30 it's a combination,

04:32 uh,

04:32 collection of bodies

04:34 who are responsible for ensuring quality,

04:36 safety,

04:36 and

04:37 suitability of goods and services

04:39 with,

04:40 so these are the components and standards development.

04:43 Then something called conformity assessment,

04:45 which is

04:45 certification inspection testing.

04:48 And meteorology also is testing,

04:50 but then it's more than that.

04:51 These are the three main pillars of quality infrastructure.

04:54 And then it,

04:55 uh,

04:56 uh,

04:56 capacity building is also quite important when it comes to,

04:59 uh,

04:59 quality infrastructure.

05:00 So all countries

05:01 actually do a lot of training,

05:03 consulting kind of activity

05:04 advising

05:05 for the quality infrastructure to develop

05:07 and then technical regulations

05:09 are actually a consumer of quality infrastructure,

05:11 but they,

05:11 they work very much hand in hand

05:13 and in many cases they actually

05:15 overstep into standards and conformity assessment.

05:18 So,

05:18 um,

05:19 uh,

05:20 many countries actually take them together with the quality infrastructure.

05:25 So,

05:25 uh,

05:26 over the years,

05:26 not only in India but

05:28 maybe globally,

05:29 we'll,

05:29 I use the term QI for quality infrastructure.

05:32 Its role has been extended beyond quality to to cover other aspects as well,

05:37 environment protection,

05:38 people's health,

05:39 safety,

05:40 and security,

05:40 as you know,

05:41 uh,

05:41 so,

05:42 uh,

05:42 we have standards on environment management,

05:45 we have standards on cybersecurity and

05:47 health and safety and all kinds.

05:48 So

05:48 all of them are standards,

05:49 and all of them require certification,

05:51 so part of the quality infrastructure.

05:53 And in India,

05:54 of course,

05:54 the,

05:54 the,

05:54 it's been a century-long history of development and societal needs.

05:58 So just for everybody's knowledge,

06:00 India

06:01 was a British colony till 1947

06:04 and got independent then 1947,

06:07 and at that time it was actually in,

06:09 in economically in a very ruinous state,

06:11 very bad shape,

06:12 hardly any industrial development,

06:14 uh,

06:15 uh,

06:15 was there,

06:16 so,

06:17 and

06:17 35,

06:18 350 million people,

06:20 uh,

06:20 you know,

06:21 so mostly agro-based economy.

06:23 So the,

06:24 uh,

06:24 the major work started for economy building from 1947 onwards,

06:29 and that's when the standards also started contributing.

06:32 So,

06:32 uh,

06:32 therefore it has been both reactive and proactive planning.

06:35 I mean reactive in many ways,

06:36 uh,

06:37 to government policy,

06:38 to developments elsewhere in the world,

06:40 and also in many cases proactive.

06:42 So we'll talk about them later.

06:44 And

06:45 there was an early recognition in India that standards are

06:47 going to play an important role in the industrial development

06:50 and therefore,

06:51 uh,

06:51 uh,

06:52 the then Prime Minister Mr.

06:54 Jawal Nehru,

06:54 the,

06:55 he,

06:55 one of the initial,

06:57 uh,

06:58 uh,

06:58 initiative

07:00 was then established in the National Standards Body,

07:02 uh,

07:02 which is called the Indian Standards Institution at that time.

07:05 Now it's called the Bureau of Indian Standards,

07:06 and also the National Meteorological Institute,

07:08 the National Physical Laboratory.

07:10 Uh,

07:10 was,

07:11 uh,

07:12 was established under his,

07:14 uh,

07:14 initiative and,

07:14 and,

07:15 and guidance.

07:16 So realizing that this is going to play an important role.

07:19 So this is a slide which actually give you,

07:21 uh,

07:21 historical,

07:22 uh,

07:22 uh,

07:23 milestones of India's QI development.

07:26 There are three phases here as you see in the red water pre-independence,

07:29 post-independence,

07:30 and then

07:31 there is something which is called post-liberalization.

07:34 There was a watershed year in India in 1991

07:36 when the economy actually opened up.

07:38 Before that it was a very controlled economy,

07:40 and there was a lot of licensing and approval

07:42 required even for setting up an industry in India.

07:45 So it was only after that,

07:46 you know,

07:46 that,

07:46 uh,

07:47 the,

07:47 the,

07:47 the regulation,

07:48 the rules and everything that got eased up and become much easier to do business

07:52 and so it in a way it opened the economy

07:54 and as you see on the screen,

07:55 I'm not going to read the whole thing,

07:57 but actually you can see how

07:58 at different

07:59 points of time,

08:00 uh,

08:00 during the history,

08:02 uh,

08:03 many of these institutions came up,

08:04 uh,

08:05 before independence also there were the railways and defense and all these,

08:08 these were the important sectors,

08:10 uh,

08:10 that was being attended

08:12 to those.

08:13 And then subsequently,

08:14 you know,

08:14 after the independence,

08:15 some of these institutes came up,

08:17 as I said,

08:17 BIS

08:18 and NPL,

08:19 and some important acts came up.

08:21 A specific body called Export Inspection Council was set up

08:24 to take care of exports and quality in exports.

08:26 Uh,

08:26 it doesn't happen everywhere in other countries,

08:28 but India still have,

08:29 we still have it.

08:30 And then,

08:30 uh,

08:31 post liberal liberalization,

08:33 it was all setting up the accreditation boards and,

08:35 you know,

08:36 enhancing their role

08:38 and,

08:38 uh,

08:39 revising the,

08:39 the IS Act,

08:40 so on.

08:43 So

08:44 just to highlight this aspect,

08:46 so

08:47 how the development in India

08:49 as a developing country,

08:50 as a diverse country,

08:51 is different from the developed nations.

08:54 So in the developed countries,

08:55 the QI development,

08:57 the standards development have been more organic,

08:59 and they had a longer time to do that actually.

09:01 I mean it's more than a century

09:03 of doing it.

09:04 India's story actually began only after 1947.

09:08 And they have been driven by industrialization and of

09:10 course we have seen the different phases of industrialization,

09:13 so,

09:13 uh,

09:14 and consumer movements.

09:15 India's development has been more centrally planned because of,

09:18 you know,

09:18 uh,

09:18 it was actually nation building,

09:20 so at least in the initial phases.

09:22 Then India's,

09:22 uh,

09:23 you know,

09:23 uh,

09:24 the whole

09:24 country is,

09:25 is huge,

09:26 it's big,

09:26 the scale is very,

09:28 very large,

09:29 uh,

09:29 it's not the most populous country in the world.

09:31 It's generally been the 2 or 3

09:34 and then the diversity of the Indian economy as I mentioned earlier,

09:36 culturally so,

09:37 so different,

09:38 uh,

09:38 uh,

09:39 every state is different,

09:40 uh,

09:41 uh,

09:41 requirements are different,

09:42 climate is different,

09:44 so it presents very unique challenges in implementing and enforcing standards

09:47 compared to smaller countries,

09:48 you know,

09:48 we're much more homogeneous,

09:50 uh,

09:50 you know,

09:50 most of the developed nations like in Europe are very homogeneous.

09:54 The level of awareness also,

09:55 uh,

09:56 you know,

09:56 uh,

09:56 is required for,

09:58 for developing the quality infrastructure

10:00 which was not as good and still not as good

10:02 because literacy rates were also very low in India,

10:04 so the demand for high quality products and services,

10:06 uh,

10:07 was also

10:07 not very,

10:08 very high.

10:08 In any case,

10:09 the supply was not there in a controlled economy,

10:11 so that,

10:12 uh,

10:12 so there was no ambition or exposure to high quality products,

10:15 which is different from

10:16 developed countries.

10:17 They were,

10:18 they were always being referred to resource constraints,

10:20 especially in terms of expertise

10:21 and standards development,

10:22 quality infrastructure,

10:23 testing,

10:24 certification,

10:26 research for this,

10:27 all of them require expertise.

10:29 So as of now things are much,

10:30 much improved,

10:31 much,

10:31 much better.

10:31 But over the history

10:33 this has been,

10:33 uh,

10:34 the issues of constraints

10:36 and which is different from the developed countries.

10:38 And then,

10:39 uh,

10:39 developed countries have used standardization as a

10:42 tool for

10:43 technical convergence that means for the industrial development,

10:46 uh,

10:47 both for domestic market and for exports.

10:49 So,

10:49 and to,

10:50 to get market leadership.

10:51 I mean Germany is one of the

10:52 countries which is known for this.

10:54 China is doing it now.

10:55 I mean,

10:55 I mean the,

10:56 the manufacturing policy for 0

10:58 2025.

11:00 They have now a standards policy for 2035

11:02 precisely based on this

11:03 convergence and market leadership

11:05 through standards.

11:06 So,

11:07 um,

11:07 India's development has focused broadly on,

11:10 uh,

11:10 socio-economic development goals.

11:12 I mean,

11:13 we have been,

11:13 uh,

11:14 plagued with poverty reduction,

11:15 rural development,

11:16 many things.

11:17 So that was the story.

11:18 Things are quite different now,

11:19 but historically this is how it has been.

11:22 So just quickly,

11:23 I mean,

11:23 I'll some slides I'll just run through very quickly because we

11:25 so that we can focus more on the substantive uh topics.

11:28 So this is what the the BIS set up in 1947

11:32 and it's the main body for setting up national standards in India

11:36 and initially,

11:37 uh,

11:37 the work was aligned

11:39 with something which are called five year plans,

11:41 which is by the,

11:41 which is a government

11:43 method

11:43 of,

11:44 uh,

11:44 you know,

11:45 uh,

11:45 approaching development.

11:46 So they made 5 year goals and targets,

11:48 and those are plans funds were allocated with certain targets.

11:51 So the Indian

11:52 standards development was aligned in the first two plans with

11:56 uh with the 5 year plans of of the country,

11:59 and they uh

12:01 uh focused,

12:01 I mean the

12:03 standards plan on basic engineering standards

12:06 and some of the words that you see here variety reduction,

12:08 import substitution,

12:09 interoperability.

12:11 So this is not very specific to India at that time,

12:13 even globally,

12:14 uh,

12:15 this was the,

12:15 the,

12:15 the focus areas.

12:17 Variety reduction is a very important component of development.

12:21 Because it improves efficiency

12:23 and all countries also look for import substitution

12:26 interoperability even today is very,

12:27 very valid as we

12:29 talk on this machine today.

12:30 It's all because of interoperability.

12:32 So all these things were quite important

12:34 and uh,

12:35 uh,

12:36 in India,

12:37 I mean some of the initial contributions which are very,

12:39 very specific were

12:40 um the metrication of the entire country from the British system,

12:43 the foot pound system

12:44 to the SIA SI system

12:46 was a major activity which BIAS or ISI supported very,

12:49 very,

12:50 very well.

12:51 Uh,

12:51 rationalizing steel production because,

12:53 uh,

12:53 you know,

12:54 it was very important to actually reduce the consumption of steel,

12:58 uh,

12:59 so the

12:59 standards helped develop the lighter

13:01 sections of steel,

13:03 uh,

13:03 you know,

13:03 and that actually helped in

13:05 reducing consumption by 15 to 20% of steel with the same,

13:08 uh,

13:09 end results.

13:10 So,

13:10 and then other sectors you would put bicycles,

13:13 all of them.

13:15 And then

13:16 in 1955,

13:17 BIS launched or ISI launched a product certification scheme

13:21 because there was no other conformity assessment in India.

13:23 This was the only one,

13:24 and it prevailed for a very,

13:25 very long time till almost about late 1980s.

13:28 There was only one scheme in India,

13:29 which was the

13:30 ISI mark scheme or the product certification scheme.

13:32 It became quite popular initially because of government uh preference.

13:36 Uh,

13:36 the agencies started buying ISMR products

13:38 as an assurance of quality.

13:40 Later it became,

13:41 you know,

13:41 more popular among consumers,

13:42 and government started also using the scheme for mandating product compliances

13:47 and some of the products that you see here,

13:48 cement and

13:50 LPG cylinders,

13:51 and electrical appliances.

13:52 Were actually brought under mandatory certification quite early,

13:55 uh,

13:55 some of them in early 70s,

13:57 80s like that.

13:58 Now we have a much larger repertoire

14:00 of these products under mandatory certification,

14:03 but this was the beginning.

14:05 So the phases of India's development,

14:07 of course,

14:07 as I mentioned earlier,

14:08 early interventions were driven by safety and health needs

14:11 and also of course the demands

14:13 of the growing infrastructure in the country.

14:15 So,

14:16 uh,

14:16 inspections and certifications,

14:18 they integrated with regulations.

14:20 That were critical for industry and,

14:22 and people like food safety and agricultural products,

14:25 boilers,

14:26 and you see an example later on.

14:28 So the inspection and certifications went hand in hand,

14:30 you know,

14:30 as you develop the regulation,

14:32 the same regulator will go on to do the inspection,

14:34 even legal meteorology,

14:35 so they would,

14:36 they would do it themselves.

14:38 Later on,

14:38 now we have much more

14:40 division of work,

14:41 but many regulators,

14:42 even today,

14:42 they conduct the certification and inspections.

14:45 And it also led to the establishment of

14:46 the quality organizations which are responsible for the

14:49 conformity assessment programs.

14:51 So as I mentioned,

14:52 the pre-independence era focused on basic inspection and standardization,

14:56 prima primarily in the railways and defense.

14:58 Post-independence,

14:59 it was more of nation building,

15:01 import substitution,

15:02 and establishment of the

15:03 ISI and the BIS,

15:06 and emphasis was on domestic quality and the self-reliance.

15:10 And then in 1991 where the paradigm shift took place in India,

15:13 so the economy opened up

15:15 and

15:16 this was a time when import substitution was of course still valid,

15:19 but then the first thoughts started to emerge

15:21 that we can also be an exporting country.

15:23 So of course exports in India started with minerals and,

15:25 you know,

15:25 metals and things like those,

15:27 but went up the value value chain,

15:29 uh,

15:29 and it's,

15:30 it's very diverse right now,

15:31 but that all started in 1991.

15:33 So greater emphasis on quality for international markets.

15:36 So that's what started happening and then because of that also

15:40 the harmonization,

15:41 the international standards,

15:42 this started taking shape till such time the standards that were made in India,

15:47 the original in India,

15:48 were all,

15:48 uh,

15:49 homegrown

15:50 based on internal requirements,

15:52 internal uh in the domestic market,

15:56 uh,

15:56 which is not exposed to the international market,

15:58 but this was a time when actually this

16:00 harmonization started actually taking place after 1991.

16:03 And

16:04 new sectors came up automotive,

16:06 uh,

16:06 engineering,

16:06 telecom,

16:07 pharma,

16:07 construction,

16:08 textiles,

16:09 all of these required,

16:10 uh,

16:11 updated quality infrastructure and also standards,

16:13 and that's why the,

16:15 uh,

16:15 the international standards started playing a much bigger role,

16:17 uh,

16:18 in India.

16:18 Then also

16:19 the increased incomes and consumption.

16:21 It also led to the consumer demand because of higher exposure,

16:24 higher,

16:24 higher money in hand.

16:25 And,

16:26 uh,

16:26 uh,

16:27 foreign products started coming into the Indian market,

16:29 so that made the paradigm change in terms

16:31 of expectations from a consumer point of view.

16:34 So demand,

16:35 uh,

16:35 started also placing,

16:36 uh,

16:36 you know,

16:37 the,

16:37 the demand grew

16:39 and it placed,

16:39 uh,

16:40 uh,

16:40 you know,

16:41 uh,

16:41 requirements

16:42 for these international standards and quality

16:44 schemes

16:45 to come in to be able to cater to those,

16:47 uh,

16:48 growing aspirations from consumers.

16:51 Sorry,

16:51 so can I,

16:52 can I ask you a question?

16:54 Yeah,

16:54 yeah,

16:54 surely,

16:54 I actually,

16:55 because my full screen is on,

16:56 so you have to speak up.

16:57 Yeah,

16:57 OK,

16:57 surely,

16:57 yes,

16:58 of course,

16:59 yeah,

16:59 no,

16:59 no,

16:59 no,

16:59 thank you.

17:00 So,

17:00 uh,

17:00 when you talk about,

17:02 uh,

17:02 more harmonization with international standards following the liberalization,

17:06 uh,

17:07 following the liberalization,

17:09 so what happened to the ISI mark?

17:11 Was that kind of dropped uh in favor for in favor of,

17:15 uh,

17:16 um,

17:17 again,

17:17 you know,

17:18 maybe you know international again international standards or

17:21 and and how costly was that I mean how different was the ISI mark to

17:26 to international standards?

17:27 I mean how,

17:28 how was the process of,

17:30 of harmonization and what,

17:31 what exactly happened to the,

17:33 to the national so ISI mark?

17:36 Yeah,

17:36 so I'll explain.

17:37 So first of all,

17:37 uh,

17:38 the ISI mark is actually a scheme which is run on the Indian standard.

17:41 And uh when,

17:43 whenever the Indian standard actually

17:45 transposed into an international standard,

17:48 enough time was given

17:49 to the industry for the quality infrastructure,

17:52 maybe sometime 2 years,

17:53 3 years,

17:54 4 years' time.

17:55 To,

17:55 to upgrade themselves and it was

17:58 and every standard that was harmonized actually came

18:00 through that committee set up so through consensus

18:03 so it wasn't actually enforced or forced upon upon the industry.

18:07 It was a gradual process,

18:09 but the but the it it set into motion

18:11 so the ISMmark scheme never actually got disturbed

18:14 because of the adoption of the international standards.

18:16 It just eased into it,

18:17 moved into it,

18:18 and the first products,

18:19 uh,

18:20 uh,

18:20 were in,

18:21 uh,

18:21 electrical electronic sector.

18:23 Uh,

18:24 and it made much more sense because,

18:26 uh,

18:27 there was a lot of interoperability issues

18:29 and there was a lot of imports taking place

18:31 in India and then some export markets also started,

18:34 so that is where it actually began and then

18:36 went into many other products

18:38 so it wasn't as difficult,

18:39 uh,

18:40 uh,

18:40 to adopt because time was given

18:43 and,

18:43 uh,

18:44 government,

18:44 BIS,

18:45 they all stepped up,

18:46 you know,

18:46 to,

18:46 to assist the industry,

18:48 so industry was supported,

18:49 yeah.

18:51 Yeah,

18:51 OK.

18:53 That's OK.

18:53 Is that OK?

18:56 That's perfect.

18:57 Thank you so much.

18:57 Perfect.

18:58 Thank you.

18:58 OK,

18:58 thank you.

18:58 Yeah,

18:59 OK.

19:00 So,

19:00 uh,

19:01 so then the greater emphasis on conformity assessment

19:03 and accreditation to build trust in Indian products

19:06 and the services internationally,

19:08 and that's why,

19:09 you know,

19:09 this,

19:09 uh,

19:10 setting up of the accreditation boards in India played a very important role

19:14 because

19:14 that's,

19:15 that's kind of a,

19:15 uh,

19:16 you know,

19:16 it's a,

19:17 it's a,

19:18 uh,

19:18 it's a

19:19 tool for market access

19:21 across the world,

19:21 you know,

19:21 because they're

19:22 based on multilateral,

19:23 uh,

19:24 agreements and,

19:25 uh,

19:25 multilateral MRIs,

19:27 so there is equivalence,

19:28 uh,

19:28 through these schemes.

19:30 And not only the accreditation programs,

19:31 even many of the regulators,

19:33 for example,

19:34 in telecom,

19:34 in automotive,

19:36 in food,

19:37 even they joined their in their respective international forums

19:41 to be able to contribute and also to adopt those regulatory standards,

19:45 uh,

19:45 you know,

19:45 so automotive in particular

19:47 was,

19:47 uh,

19:48 quite aggressive in that.

19:49 Right now we have actually in the,

19:50 in the mobile,

19:51 uh,

19:51 and,

19:52 uh,

19:52 internet,

19:53 uh,

19:53 domain

19:54 that one of the DSDOs in India is quite aggressive on that,

19:58 right.

19:59 Some sectoral examples of early technical regulations,

20:02 one of them,

20:03 of course,

20:03 was,

20:04 uh,

20:04 boilers,

20:05 and boilers is quite important actually globally because,

20:08 you know,

20:09 these standards

20:10 are adopted worldwide and they constitute a very important

20:13 aspect of industrial safety.

20:16 So this was,

20:16 uh,

20:17 and this is actually

20:18 composed of a lot of standards,

20:19 conformity assessment schemes put together.

20:22 It's,

20:22 it's a package.

20:23 So that's why I've flagged it here

20:25 and it started before independence in 1937.

20:28 And this was delivered through,

20:30 you know,

20:30 a very federated structure.

20:32 India is a federal economy,

20:34 so delegated to the state government,

20:35 they set up offices in each state for boiler control and similarly

20:39 for the food regulations as well.

20:40 We started in 1954,

20:42 became consolidated in 2006,

20:44 but then again,

20:45 uh,

20:45 you know,

20:46 the,

20:46 the,

20:46 the implementation of conformity ass been and regulatory practices.

20:50 It's again quite decentralized to the to the states

20:53 and also for the legal meteorology

20:55 which is quite important again started in 1956 after independence

20:59 coincided also with the OIML,

21:01 which is a global body for legal meteorology,

21:03 and then we have a more consolidated version from 2009 onwards

21:09 again it's it's decentralized

21:10 but works very closely with the National

21:12 Meteorological Institute,

21:13 which is the NPL.

21:14 In India

21:15 and these are the other sectors,

21:17 you know,

21:18 where,

21:18 where standards played a very important role

21:19 in their development of the respective industry

21:21 at different points of time.

21:22 So private in 1960,

21:24 jute and again

21:25 1960 to 1970s.

21:26 The jute is a very important uh product

21:28 for India actually uh we are the largest producer

21:31 and.

21:32 A lot of export happening to products,

21:34 so this industry was supported by

21:36 writing a number of standards

21:37 and also reducing variety.

21:39 There were a huge number of varieties

21:40 to,

21:41 to,

21:41 to,

21:42 to consolidate them.

21:43 So this worked very nicely.

21:44 Steel,

21:45 I mentioned,

21:45 I mean,

21:45 the steel economy,

21:47 uh,

21:47 came through the standard

21:48 standards process,

21:49 and then construction in 1970 we built the National Building Code,

21:53 uh,

21:53 so that's when it

21:54 brought to order the building construction in India

21:57 together with a number of other standards

21:58 for construction.

22:00 Then potable drinking water,

22:01 this was a mission in India for,

22:03 uh,

22:04 for the rural sector,

22:05 uh,

22:05 you know,

22:05 to ensure safe water,

22:07 safe drinking water for them.

22:08 It was a mission drawn from 1987 to 2002.

22:11 BIS standards played a very,

22:12 very important role

22:14 in assuring the quality of drinking water and also developing standards for,

22:18 for,

22:18 uh,

22:19 for the tube wells and for the hand pumps,

22:20 uh,

22:21 which were actually the mainstay for drinking water in the,

22:24 in the rural areas.

22:25 The automotive,

22:26 uh,

22:26 story started in 1989,

22:28 uh,

22:28 where again standards played a very important role,

22:30 not necessarily from the BIS,

22:32 but otherwise,

22:32 you know,

22:32 the,

22:33 the international standards came in and they played a very

22:35 important role in developing a very tiered structure in India.

22:38 Telecom products 94 onwards and precious metal hallmarking of gold 2001 onwards

22:43 and currently,

22:43 I mean we're working on of course

22:45 beyond solar PV is green hydrogen where again standards are actually leading the,

22:49 the development

22:50 of the green hydrogen ecosystem in India.

22:52 So different sectors at different points of time,

22:54 the standards have played a very important

22:56 role

22:57 and currently also,

22:58 and this is of course uh uh

23:00 when I had my discussion with Deve,

23:01 she was very particular to asking this question

23:03 about how we standards have actually helped in digital India.

23:06 So there's a division in BIS called LITD with uh the full name is given here at the top,

23:11 Electronics and Information Technology Department.

23:13 So this is very much aligned with the

23:15 digital transformation happening in India right now,

23:17 and we have many policies right now.

23:18 If you see at the bottom of the slide Digital India program,

23:21 then we have the National Electronic Policy of India,

23:23 national policy on software products,

23:25 cybersecurity policy,

23:26 all of these.

23:27 So the work going on by this division at the domestic level is on safety,

23:31 cybersecurity,

23:33 system integration,

23:34 uh,

23:35 societal concern across IT,

23:36 smart technologies,

23:37 all of this,

23:38 and the future plans are on IoT,

23:39 blockchain,

23:40 and,

23:41 uh,

23:41 artificial intelligence,

23:42 wearable devices.

23:43 AI,

23:44 in fact,

23:44 India is playing a very important role

23:46 in not only developing Indian standards,

23:47 but also international standards.

23:50 It's like

23:52 So it's,

23:52 it's quite a line and doing a fairly good job

23:55 in this domain.

23:57 So this is the current status of,

23:59 uh,

23:59 the,

23:59 uh,

23:59 infrastructure.

24:00 I mean we come through history.

24:02 This is where we are right now.

24:03 So we have the

24:04 BIES,

24:04 which is the National Standards Body,

24:06 Meteorology,

24:06 we have the NPL,

24:08 and we also have the Department of Legal Meteorology,

24:11 and then in conformity assessment,

24:12 of course we have the BIS scheme,

24:13 the product certification scheme.

24:15 And then,

24:16 uh,

24:16 in addition to that,

24:17 we have now a lot,

24:18 a lot of,

24:19 uh,

24:19 private bodies,

24:20 certification bodies,

24:21 inspection bodies.

24:22 I just took a count,

24:23 uh,

24:23 before,

24:24 before the seminar.

24:25 So at this moment,

24:26 there are 133 inspection bodies which are accredited in India

24:30 and all 50,

24:31 uh,

24:32 magnet system certification bodies,

24:33 about 40,

24:35 uh,

24:35 product certification bodies,

24:36 uh,

24:37 sorry,

24:37 uh,

24:37 uh,

24:38 uh.

24:39 Yeah,

24:39 40 certification bodies.

24:41 So many of them,

24:42 in addition,

24:42 the commodity boards in India for silk,

24:44 for tea,

24:45 for spices,

24:46 they all have their own conformity assessment schemes.

24:49 So it's a very widely spread

24:51 ecosystem of conformity assessment

24:53 also.

24:54 And then accreditation,

24:55 of course,

24:55 we have two major boards at ABCB.

24:58 And the NABL,

24:59 NABL for testing and calibration of laboratories,

25:01 NABSB for certification inspection bodies

25:03 under a single body which is called the Quality Council of India.

25:06 So they have done fairly well.

25:08 I'll show you the,

25:09 uh,

25:09 the numbers,

25:10 uh,

25:10 the next slide.

25:11 And then we have technical regulations.

25:13 So we have several regulatory bodies,

25:15 and then many line ministries also act as the technical regulator themselves.

25:20 So this constitutes in a way the quality infrastructure.

25:23 So on the numbers of BIS uh published more than 22,000 Indian standards

25:28 from an NSB perspective,

25:30 I think probably Germany is number one,

25:31 and they have published about 30,000 standards,

25:34 but then Germany is really,

25:35 very,

25:35 very high on that,

25:36 uh,

25:37 so 22,000 standards for an economy generally is considered to be quite good

25:41 across 17 division councils.

25:43 Uh,

25:44 then

25:45 the harmonization of standards is

25:48 88% at this moment and the number is,

25:51 uh,

25:51 about 8600 standards.

25:53 Uh,

25:53 out of about 9400 possible

25:55 standards which can be harmonized,

25:57 the remaining

25:58 is not possible to harmonize because very typically Indian standards,

26:01 we don't have the equivalent

26:02 standard in the ISO IEC levels.

26:04 So that's the number and which is,

26:05 I think,

26:06 uh,

26:06 among the best,

26:07 uh,

26:07 in terms of percentage.

26:08 Uh,

26:09 international participation,

26:10 BIS,

26:10 India has been very,

26:11 very weak,

26:12 and,

26:13 uh,

26:13 so this is an area which is of concern and it's now improving,

26:16 of course.

26:17 So we have Secretariat of 11 ISO.

26:20 I write committees here actually it's not full committees.

26:22 They're also including subcommittees.

26:25 Uh,

26:25 China,

26:26 the same number is about 100 or so.

26:28 It's like this.

26:28 That's the difference.

26:29 But then we are actually moving up the ladder can be the

26:32 shape of 33 work groups in the ISO and 11 in IEC,

26:34 which is a good number.

26:35 This progress mostly has happened in the last 5 to 6 years' time.

26:39 Right.

26:39 And then the other SDOs in India,

26:41 uh,

26:41 15 bodies are engaged in standards development and different sectors

26:44 other than BIS,

26:45 but BIS is now

26:47 mandated to harmonize the effort of all the standard bodies in India

26:50 through an act.

26:51 One of the important bodies is the TSTSI,

26:54 the tech,

26:54 uh,

26:54 the,

26:55 uh,

26:55 Telecom,

26:56 uh,

26:56 Standards Development Society.

26:58 And they are an active contributor to 3

27:01 GPP standards for mobile telephony and also 112M

27:04 for uh for IOT and and IIOT

27:08 standards development.

27:09 So they are developing Indian standards

27:11 as well as quite,

27:13 quite active

27:14 in the international standards development.

27:16 And uh

27:17 BIS has recently developed a scheme for science developing organizations in 2020,

27:22 but I think only 3 bodies have been accredited so far.

27:25 Hopefully more will,

27:26 will come forward in this one.

27:27 But very important point to note here is the last,

27:30 last bullet here.

27:32 So many of these international SDOs like IEPE for electrotechnical products,

27:37 ASTM

27:38 of course for testing of materials,

27:40 ASME for the oil and gas sector and pipelines,

27:44 UL of course for product safety,

27:45 IFO for plumbing,

27:47 BSI,

27:48 of course for multiple products.

27:50 Their standards are

27:51 very much prevalent in India,

27:53 uh,

27:54 used by industry wherever there's an international linkage.

27:56 Mostly these standards actually apply.

27:58 Uh,

27:59 and Indian standards may not necessarily be used because of this,

28:01 and so far there has not been

28:04 much effort except with UL

28:05 where BIS has been able to actually develop some kind of understanding or MOU

28:09 for co-development or adoption of standards.

28:12 So there is a duality

28:13 currently in the Indian market,

28:14 and this happens in other countries also.

28:16 It's not only in India.

28:17 This duality will continue because these standards

28:19 are very powerful all over the world,

28:21 so this will continue.

28:22 So we need to do something more about this one.

28:25 Uh,

28:25 on meteorology and accreditation,

28:27 we have NPL which has,

28:28 uh,

28:29 uh,

28:30 calibration measurement capability in 236,

28:33 uh,

28:33 lines,

28:33 which is not a very good number at all.

28:35 Um,

28:36 uh,

28:36 uh,

28:37 for example,

28:38 I think,

28:38 uh,

28:39 Germany has,

28:40 I think,

28:41 almost about 3.

28:41 1000 or something like this,

28:43 and France has 800 something,

28:45 so that number is not very good,

28:47 but then it is still serving

28:48 the cause so far in India

28:50 and 168 international comparisons.

28:53 That's,

28:53 that's just a number,

28:54 but then I give you a measure of where we are today on this one.

28:58 A lot of more work needs to be done here.

29:00 Then we have the NAB NABR NAB NABCB.

29:03 Uh,

29:03 this is,

29:04 of course I mentioned.

29:05 Under Quality Council of India,

29:06 and this body has been incidentally set up

29:08 under a joint partnership of government and three APECT industry chambers,

29:12 uh,

29:12 and it operates autonomously.

29:14 NABL at its,

29:15 uh,

29:15 testing laboratories,

29:16 calibration laboratories,

29:17 and also medical laboratories,

29:19 uh,

29:19 in India.

29:19 Of course there are also 3 other private bodies which have been recently granted

29:23 MRA membership by the,

29:24 uh,

29:24 by the AIPAC.

29:25 So,

29:26 uh,

29:26 in terms of status they're equal to NABL,

29:28 but in terms of numbers,

29:29 uh,

29:29 there's nowhere there.

29:30 NABL is taken as a national body.

29:32 Similarly,

29:33 NABCB

29:33 is also taken as a national accreditation body.

29:36 It has 21 MRA recognition from APAC,

29:38 which is a fairly good,

29:39 uh,

29:39 number.

29:41 And these are some other numbers on the tree,

29:43 I think which you can see here.

29:45 So although BISS published 22,000 standards out

29:47 of which about 10,000 are product standards,

29:50 only 1,376 are under certification.

29:52 So the rest are under self-implementation,

29:55 not being used,

29:56 or actually they cross refer to each other.

29:59 But the numbers in terms of,

30:00 uh,

30:00 product certification is fairly good,

30:02 50,000 certification granted by BIS

30:05 overseas,

30:06 uh,

30:06 1800 standards.

30:08 Hallmarking is 185,000,

30:10 uh,

30:10 uh,

30:10 certification granted.

30:12 In addition to this,

30:13 this is outside BIS.

30:14 So there is also a green building certification in India.

30:18 Being done by leader of US and also Indian body called IGBC.

30:21 So that's again a good number and this is growing very,

30:23 very good,

30:24 very well,

30:25 uh,

30:25 this Green Building certification.

30:27 Then on the social side,

30:28 uh,

30:28 this again is SA 8000 is not BIS,

30:31 it's actually an international body for social accountability.

30:33 So these certifications

30:35 in the social sector,

30:36 uh,

30:37 basically look after child labor,

30:38 for example,

30:39 and

30:39 child and women development,

30:40 labor union rights,

30:43 labor rights,

30:43 that means

30:45 they address these,

30:45 those,

30:46 uh,

30:46 uh requirements.

30:48 Then we also have the energy labeling uh certificates,

30:50 which is

30:51 again,

30:51 growing and fairly good number.

30:54 On the right-hand side you see we have about

30:56 92,800

30:58 management system certification granted.

31:01 Sorry about this.

31:02 This is number 3 in the world,

31:04 number 1 in Italy,

31:04 then China,

31:05 and then we have India on this one,

31:07 and then we have the accretation,

31:08 uh,

31:09 uh,

31:10 numbers,

31:10 uh,

31:10 the right hand side of the screen,

31:12 bottom.

31:13 So 430 odd laboratories,

31:15 uh,

31:16 accredited,

31:16 uh,

31:17 medical is about 2000

31:18 calibration is about,

31:20 uh,

31:20 uh,

31:20 uh,

31:21 1100,

31:22 so fairly good numbers,

31:23 but again India is a very big country,

31:24 so,

31:25 uh,

31:26 uh,

31:26 but more or less I would say on the testing side,

31:29 product testing side is

31:31 fairly well established.

31:32 On the medical side,

31:33 it's,

31:33 it's just a fraction.

31:34 I mean we have

31:35 a very,

31:36 very large number of medical laboratories in India,

31:38 so that has to really go on.

31:40 This is a measure of the

31:42 Global Quality infrastructure index.

31:45 Many may not agree with this,

31:46 but India's done fairly,

31:47 very,

31:47 very well

31:48 on this and improved.

31:50 So the overall rank out of 185 countries

31:53 is 10,

31:54 and in,

31:55 um,

31:55 standardization it is number 8,

31:57 and in accreditation it is number 5.

32:00 that is because of the establishment of the,

32:03 of the bodies and the amount of work that they have done,

32:05 the numbers that you have seen.

32:07 So this figure comes from there and also

32:09 participation in international standardization.

32:13 OK,

32:13 so technical regulations,

32:14 of course,

32:15 uh,

32:15 globally and in India,

32:17 there's increasing use of technical regulations by government bodies,

32:20 uh,

32:21 primarily,

32:21 as you see on the screen is because of safety,

32:23 health,

32:23 and environment protection.

32:25 But in reality it also actually extend to to a bit of

32:28 uh uh protective uh tool uh for the economy.

32:32 I think every country does that,

32:34 so India is also uh doing it to some extent.

32:36 There's an element of protection involved,

32:38 but then,

32:39 uh,

32:39 otherwise it is essentially uh intended to be,

32:43 uh,

32:43 covering safety,

32:44 health,

32:44 and environment,

32:45 and sometimes also,

32:47 uh,

32:47 you know,

32:47 uh,

32:48 deceptive trade practices.

32:50 So,

32:50 uh,

32:51 some of the important sectors aligned,

32:52 of course,

32:53 with,

32:53 uh,

32:54 uh,

32:54 global systems is on food,

32:56 telecom,

32:56 aviation,

32:57 electrical,

32:58 and there is now an effort to ensure transparency and stakeholder consultation

33:02 in the development of technical regulatory regulation.

33:04 So it's very fairly well established now.

33:06 No,

33:06 no regulation will come up without proper consultation within the,

33:09 within the country.

33:10 And also of course WTO is mandatory that a wider consultation,

33:14 60 days,

33:15 uh,

33:15 every regulation goes through that consultation process.

33:18 So 9 regulatory bodies have been established in India for different sectors.

33:23 For others is the aligned ministries which actually regulate.

33:26 And then,

33:27 uh,

33:27 of late in the last 5 years

33:29 we have been

33:30 growing very aggressive on the number of standards of products

33:33 that will be brought under mandatory certification

33:36 from about 100

33:37 to 700 in the last 5 years.

33:39 This has created some kind of a disruption in the market,

33:42 certainly.

33:43 So there has been accommodation by government extensions have been granted.

33:47 Support.

33:47 Has been granted,

33:48 but this number is going to grow just for comparison,

33:51 China has about 2700 standards under mandatory,

33:54 uh,

33:54 regime,

33:55 so uh we have 700.

33:57 So this number is certainly going to grow.

33:59 Also omnibus regulations which cover the entire sectors,

34:02 uh,

34:03 uh,

34:03 regulations have been issued on machinery,

34:05 electrical appliances,

34:06 medical devices,

34:07 toys,

34:07 and chemicals is in the offing.

34:10 So now the,

34:11 the final briefly,

34:11 sorry,

34:13 I think uh in the SWOT analysis part,

34:15 I think you might have to like uh cut a little bit of the content just in terms of time.

34:20 Yeah,

34:21 I,

34:21 I'll just show them,

34:22 Philip,

34:22 if it is all right.

34:23 Is it OK?

34:24 We can also share them afterwards,

34:26 and then I'll do that.

34:27 I'll do that,

34:27 yeah,

34:27 OK.

34:28 So,

34:28 so just to,

34:29 to give a little small background,

34:32 so in,

34:33 in 2014,

34:34 India started actually reviewing the quality infrastructure arrangements,

34:38 and,

34:39 uh,

34:39 this forum was created by government and one of the chambers,

34:43 CII,

34:43 where I was working earlier.

34:45 And this chamber,

34:46 this forum was created to discuss

34:49 where we are on the standards front on what infrastructure and

34:51 why we are not able to actually push our exports.

34:54 Commerce Ministry obviously was interested in exports.

34:57 That's how it all started.

34:58 So this forum was created and actually it emerged into a very nice forum to discuss

35:02 very wide participation across the country.

35:05 And in 2017 out of this forum,

35:07 the SWOT analysis was done.

35:09 So these were the strengths in India.

35:10 I mean,

35:10 I

35:11 got a shortage of time.

35:12 So just quickly go through,

35:13 I mean you can read it.

35:14 So this was the strength of India,

35:17 but then

35:17 more importantly,

35:18 these were the weaknesses,

35:19 so limitation of resources,

35:21 lack of a framework to promote and consolidate standardization,

35:25 lack of forums to articulate and prioritize needs for standards,

35:29 a lot of multiplicity of standards,

35:30 lack of adequate adequate participation.

35:33 In the standard development process,

35:35 lack of leadership in international standards development,

35:38 and lack of coordination among standard bodies

35:40 and agencies responsible for trade promotion,

35:42 and lack of R&D to support standardization

35:45 on conformity assessment.

35:46 It was actually losing credibility of the marital system

35:49 certification not only in India but everywhere else.

35:51 At one point in time,

35:52 these were supposed to be the,

35:53 uh,

35:53 you know,

35:54 the,

35:54 the highest order of certifications,

35:56 but they have lost a lot of credibility

35:58 and no domestic certification scheme actually has a global brand value,

36:01 which is actually a very

36:02 disconcerting factor,

36:04 including the ISMR.

36:05 Then lack of awareness among regulators to

36:07 how to utilize the conformity assessment schemes,

36:10 perception of cumbersome procedures,

36:12 and government agencies not insisting for accredited certification.

36:17 And no instrument available with the

36:18 government to control unscrupulous and fraudulent certifications

36:21 on this.

36:22 What now on the,

36:23 on the technical regulation side.

36:25 So there is,

36:26 uh,

36:26 it was felt that we don't have a comprehensive regulation

36:29 to modify technical regulations.

36:30 We actually use different

36:31 acts,

36:32 uh,

36:33 at the moment,

36:33 so it's not

36:34 very uniform at this particular moment,

36:36 and many sectors did not have the technical regulation.

36:38 Now we have,

36:39 but at that time,

36:40 2017,

36:41 we did not have.

36:42 Lack of this is also very important lack

36:44 of agile response mechanism to deal with technical regulations

36:47 issued by other economies.

36:49 So China actually has a very well established center for dealing with this issue.

36:54 India,

36:54 we have set up something.

36:56 It is still quite weak,

36:57 but so we have to have a mechanism to be able to respond very quickly

37:01 to what developments happening elsewhere in the world.

37:04 And then many standards of regulatory,

37:06 uh,

37:06 you know,

37:06 regime are not aligned with international standards.

37:09 Many regulators.

37:11 Where,

37:12 you know,

37:12 we didn't have in many sectors

37:14 and then so I I

37:16 go to the next one

37:17 and then these were the,

37:18 because of this,

37:18 these were the threats.

37:20 So many countries,

37:21 including Asian countries,

37:23 they were moving up the ladder and becoming favored suppliers.

37:27 MSME sector was getting challenged because of the dumping of products into India,

37:31 cheaper uh materials

37:32 happening elsewhere in the world as well.

37:35 Increasing oversight,

37:36 especially in Europe and other economies,

37:38 posing very stiff challenge for exports of Indian products.

37:41 Then of course dumping of substandard products.

37:44 And then fast-paced IT enablement of manufacturing

37:47 was also presenting a lot of difficulties.

37:49 So these were the threats.

37:50 I'll save the opportunities.

37:52 And then this was,

37:53 therefore this was built as a response,

37:54 the IRSS,

37:55 uh,

37:55 document,

37:56 and this has served as one of the key reference documents ever since,

38:00 uh,

38:00 we had this,

38:01 uh,

38:01 uh,

38:01 you know,

38:02 this was developed,

38:03 and it is actually,

38:04 if you see,

38:04 read on the screen,

38:05 many of the

38:06 recommendations have actually been implemented.

38:08 That means

38:09 there is a coordination of standardization efforts now within the country

38:12 agencies working together.

38:13 A dedicated division have been set up for service sector standards in the BIS.

38:18 They,

38:18 you know,

38:18 there has been stepping up of the notification of technical regulations.

38:21 All the omnibus regulations have come up after this

38:23 enhanced participation in international standardization.

38:26 We're almost 90% of the committees we are represented at ISONIC.

38:30 And uh with some funding support now we are actually

38:33 able to fund people who are attending those meetings.

38:35 It was not there earlier

38:37 then establishing national mechanism for

38:39 identification of real standards needs.

38:41 This has actually become very,

38:42 very,

38:43 uh,

38:43 very nice,

38:44 including the industry bodies and the

38:45 government ministries.

38:47 They're able to do this.

38:48 And then also

38:49 some research element going into standards development.

38:52 So my last slide is this one.

38:53 I'm sorry,

38:54 Philip,

38:54 but I think we can probably go through this one as well.

38:57 So

38:58 these are the learning from our experience.

39:00 One is that

39:01 early government support

39:02 in a developing country is important

39:04 and also some investment is also quite important,

39:07 but eventually the quality infrastructure will

39:09 mature only with the active participation

39:11 of the private sector

39:13 in standard setting in meteorology,

39:14 in conformity assessment.

39:16 The US has 237 bodies

39:19 developing standards.

39:20 All are in the private sector and see only

39:22 put them together,

39:23 so that's,

39:24 that's their success essentially.

39:26 And then to align the standards efforts to the national priority sector.

39:30 This is also quite important.

39:33 So this is being done in India now,

39:36 at least in the service sector.

39:37 It is completely aligned.

39:38 So there are 12 champion sectors decided by the government

39:42 and the 19 divisions that we have in service services sector standards

39:46 is all aligned to these 12 champion sectors,

39:49 similarly

39:50 in the manufacturing also.

39:52 So the mechanism to identify the needs

39:55 are extremely important for every developing country.

39:58 Technical regulations support in discipline,

40:00 disciplining the supplies in the market,

40:03 but in the long term,

40:04 voluntary compliance always works better

40:06 because technical regulations always actually lead to some degree of compromise,

40:11 fraudulent practices,

40:12 and you need to have the mechanism to be able to control that.

40:15 So voluntary compliance in terms of consumer

40:18 choice and availability of better quality products

40:20 is better.

40:22 But we still need technical regulations and a developing phase

40:25 to support the,

40:26 the,

40:26 you know,

40:26 the to make

40:27 the industry disciplined.

40:30 When coordination among agencies is extremely challenging

40:33 but essential to make the overall QI work efficiently,

40:35 this is a challenge not only in developing countries,

40:38 also in the developed countries everywhere.

40:39 This is a challenge and problem.

40:41 Harmonization of standards and

40:43 participation in international standards development

40:45 is challenging.

40:46 It's cost is,

40:47 is

40:48 expensive,

40:48 costly,

40:49 uh,

40:50 it requires effort,

40:51 but it is,

40:52 it is essential.

40:53 It must be pursued.

40:54 And forming regional alignments or

40:56 using existing arrangements for standards cooperation

40:59 help in improving trade as well as voice in the international forums.

41:02 So I'll close with this.

41:03 Sorry,

41:03 I think it

41:04 took a bit of a

41:05 maybe another 5

41:06 extra 5 or 7 minutes.

41:08 But then,

41:08 uh,

41:09 Philip,

41:10 yeah,

41:10 yeah,

41:10 no,

41:11 thank you so much,

41:11 Anuppan.

41:12 Um,

41:12 it's,

41:13 it's a challenge.

41:13 It's a,

41:14 it's a hugely technical topic.

41:16 Um,

41:16 and,

41:17 and of course it touches upon,

41:18 uh,

41:19 so many areas of,

41:20 of India's economy and societies.

41:22 So pressing that into

41:23 30 minutes is a huge challenge.

41:25 So thank you so much,

41:25 Anupon for this rich presentation.

41:28 And over to you Devesh,

41:30 for,

41:30 um,

41:31 reactions,

41:32 um,

41:32 but let me also like use the opportunity to like ask,

41:35 um,

41:36 the other participants to

41:38 put their questions in the chat or,

41:40 or,

41:40 um,

41:41 raise your hand if you want to

41:43 ask any.

41:44 Yes.

41:46 Thanks,

41:47 Philip,

41:47 uh,

41:48 thanks,

41:48 bump,

41:49 uh.

41:51 Just some,

41:51 you know,

41:52 broad question,

41:52 because I'm sure my colleagues also have.

41:56 One is,

41:57 uh,

41:59 If you can give us a better sense of the demand side for standards.

42:05 Uh,

42:05 so,

42:06 broadly speaking,

42:07 right,

42:07 uh,

42:08 the demand

42:09 comes from firms,

42:11 from

42:13 industry bodies,

42:14 from

42:15 professional organizations,

42:17 uh,

42:18 that's,

42:19 uh,

42:20 from,

42:20 uh,

42:22 consumer groups.

42:24 From

42:25 uh built into government

42:28 procurement,

42:28 which

42:29 it requires standards and that creates a demand.

42:33 And one of the things that's interesting in countries like the US.

42:37 A very important player in the demand for standards has been

42:42 the defense industry.

42:43 Yes.

42:46 Among these

42:48 Uh

42:49 It would be,

42:50 uh,

42:50 it would be good to hear,

42:51 and I just go over a few questions and then you can take whichever one you prefer.

42:55 You know,

42:55 how has,

42:55 how has this demand evolved in India over time,

42:59 because one,

43:00 in India,

43:01 professional organizations are much weaker.

43:04 In the case of industry groups.

43:08 It's not clear

43:10 when

43:11 they serve

43:13 a role,

43:14 you know,

43:14 a coordination function.

43:18 To create the demand for standards or when

43:20 firms actually use it to stifle competition.

43:25 Uh,

43:25 which is certainly not unknown in India and elsewhere.

43:30 A second set of questions is

43:33 on the compliance part,

43:35 you know,

43:35 you mentioned repeatedly India being a federal

43:37 country,

43:39 uh,

43:39 different states,

43:40 as we know.

43:42 The northern eastern states have much weaker

43:46 capacity.

43:48 And how has that affected

43:51 the compliance?

43:52 Do industries move to states

43:55 with lower standards in certain areas?

43:58 Is there sort of leakage,

44:00 so to speak,

44:01 because of this wide variance

44:03 in

44:04 capacity across the country?

44:07 Yes.

44:08 The third set of questions is is around

44:11 safety standards.

44:12 So I was just doing something on India's,

44:16 uh,

44:16 road

44:17 safety.

44:18 And if you think about the

44:21 road.

44:22 Over the past

44:24 decade alone,

44:25 uh,

44:26 a million people in India have been killed in road fatalities.

44:31 Now if you think of it,

44:31 a million is a a pretty large number

44:34 in the last 10 years,

44:36 and if you read the literature,

44:38 the analysis,

44:39 you know,

44:39 it's all from standards in road construction

44:43 to standards in the certification of drivers,

44:46 etc.

44:47 etc.

44:48 right?

44:49 Again,

44:50 this is regulated largely at the local level.

44:54 A second example is you mentioned uh uh medical labs.

44:59 Now,

45:00 uh,

45:01 the number you gave was that

45:03 2100,

45:06 yeah,

45:07 but there are the actual number of medical labs is 0.3 million.

45:13 So just less than 1% of medical labs are actually certified.

45:19 Now,

45:19 someone might say,

45:20 look,

45:21 this is a big safety issue,

45:23 why is it not mandatory?

45:26 And,

45:26 and just the last point,

45:27 and then I'll stop,

45:28 uh,

45:29 because we've been doing something in the WDR on,

45:31 on,

45:31 on sort of

45:33 boilers,

45:34 and we have a background paper

45:36 looking at the regulation in France,

45:38 UK,

45:38 and also in the US.

45:41 Now

45:41 the

45:42 boiler inspection was seen as a classic license in Inspector Raj,

45:47 you know,

45:47 if you read the literature,

45:49 and it was seen as a clear,

45:51 uh,

45:52 way of

45:52 basically rent seeking behavior by government

45:57 officials.

45:59 Now you mentioned that this has now moved

46:01 to the uh private sector

46:03 in France and UK.

46:05 They began to use sort of insurance mechanisms

46:08 to raise the cost

46:10 of poor maintenance.

46:13 How is the evolution of border inspection sort of shows

46:17 the broader evolution of the compliance mechanisms of standards

46:21 in the country?

46:22 I'll just stop there because I know

46:24 we don't have much time and,

46:26 and others have also some

46:28 questions.

46:29 Thank you.

46:30 So

46:30 yeah,

46:31 so I'll answer one by one,

46:33 Devesh,

46:34 and some answers actually will,

46:35 uh,

46:36 will need a lot of explaining,

46:37 but I'll try and make it as concise as possible.

46:39 Standards demand,

46:40 you said,

46:41 uh,

46:41 over time.

46:42 So in over time,

46:43 of course,

46:43 I mentioned to you initially

46:45 it was coming as a priority of the sectors,

46:48 and demand was primarily

46:50 there was a need articulation by the government side.

46:52 And the,

46:53 uh,

46:53 you know,

46:53 the agencies and BIS itself would be the,

46:57 the writer of the standard.

46:58 They would write the first draft.

47:00 It wasn't,

47:00 as of now,

47:01 it doesn't happen that way.

47:03 Now the draft

47:04 comes to BIS ready from the industry.

47:06 At that time

47:08 it was the BIS officer sitting in the table.

47:10 He'll do his own work,

47:11 go and find out,

47:12 and then write those standards.

47:13 It was coming from,

47:14 from there.

47:15 So that is how the demand came.

47:17 At one point in time,

47:19 uh,

47:19 Devesh,

47:19 I'm,

47:20 I'm,

47:20 I'm not a very pleasant thing to say.

47:22 Standards development

47:24 also become a target-driven activity for the BIS officers at some point in time.

47:28 Not a very bad thing actually,

47:30 because I mean it's sort of sitting idle.

47:33 So they were looking at,

47:34 you know,

47:34 identity trying to identify a subject,

47:36 it's maybe

47:37 maybe I'll write a standard on this something.

47:39 They look at the some of the national standard,

47:42 see if it is relevant to India,

47:43 adopt it and do that.

47:45 So that was,

47:46 that was around,

47:46 I would say,

47:48 maybe in the 7 80s,

47:50 mid 80s and 90s.

47:52 As of now,

47:53 what is happening,

47:53 where is the demand coming from,

47:56 you know,

47:56 because of this regulatory regimen coming all over the world and also in India.

48:02 And you mentioned this as well,

48:03 so there is this degree of,

48:06 uh,

48:06 you know,

48:07 competition as well as

48:10 the desire for protection.

48:13 I am myself consulting,

48:14 advising many,

48:15 many industries now who are,

48:17 who I'm helping to write standards.

48:19 They'll give it to the BIS,

48:20 hoping that the standard,

48:22 once it is developed,

48:22 there will be certification around it

48:24 and also hoping someday the government will actually mandate it.

48:28 And once mandated,

48:28 it actually gives them a protection.

48:30 So as of now in many and in many instances it will be one industry

48:36 and in many they will all come together as a as a consortium.

48:39 And they will write

48:41 a draft standard and make a case

48:43 and then they will get to the give it to the PIS.

48:45 So that's happening uh in the,

48:47 in the manufacturing sector

48:49 in services at this moment I chair a committee and many others do that.

48:53 It's actually

48:55 we are hard pressed to even identify a subject,

48:57 so the committee itself,

48:58 you know,

48:59 we'll do a

49:00 a kind of a debate and

49:01 what more subject can we actually get to write a standard.

49:04 So we are still there

49:05 and service sector all over the world,

49:07 there are hardly any standards.

49:09 So to that extent we are doing.

49:11 Actually,

49:11 you know,

49:11 better than many countries

49:13 trying to write standards,

49:15 so that's how it is coming.

49:16 So on that standards demand side,

49:18 uh,

49:18 but not really much from the consumer side.

49:21 It's primarily coming from industrial.

49:23 I wouldn't say anything really coming from,

49:26 from the,

49:26 from the consumer.

49:28 OK,

49:28 uh,

49:29 right,

49:30 so,

49:30 uh,

49:31 from the government side also,

49:32 let me give one example.

49:34 So there is this uh

49:35 uh intended use of

49:39 bio biofuel in the,

49:40 in the petrol and diesel in India.

49:43 That percentage started with 5%.

49:46 It's currently at 15%,

49:47 and this year's target is 20%.

49:50 Now

49:51 that standard was written on government request

49:54 and around the standard now there are so

49:56 many different equipment that handle that biofuel,

49:58 those standards are now getting written.

50:00 So that's,

50:01 so again,

50:02 uh demand comes from the government because of a requirement

50:04 and standards get built

50:06 on the compliance side and uh

50:08 on the uh uh uh weaker capacity.

50:12 So yes,

50:13 compliance on any technical regulation anywhere in the world.

50:17 Is,

50:17 is weak.

50:18 Let me be very,

50:19 very honest with you.

50:21 Uh,

50:21 I mean,

50:21 I can,

50:23 sure,

50:23 I don't know whether I should give that,

50:24 but even C marks came in Europe,

50:26 there was a survey done,

50:27 the compliance level was fairly low.

50:29 And the same thing happens in India.

50:31 So it's not a function of the state because if you look at a northeastern state,

50:35 the,

50:35 the,

50:36 the intensity of industry itself is quite low.

50:39 So therefore the need for the quality

50:41 infrastructure also accordingly will be lower.

50:43 And then what they do

50:44 for the northeastern state,

50:45 they were actually a consolidation.

50:46 They were all taken together in a bunch,

50:49 so you did not need to have a controller in each state.

50:52 So one in Assam will take care of all the 78 states,

50:55 and that's how they were doing that.

50:57 So yes,

50:58 uh,

50:58 capacity,

50:59 uh,

50:59 can be be

51:01 and

51:01 so they

51:03 strengthening also I think you asked a particular question whether it was a boiler

51:07 and for this,

51:08 so there has been a move now of private certification,

51:11 at least in the boiler,

51:12 the National Productivity Council has been charged with actually conducting

51:16 professional examinations and certifying individuals

51:19 who are chartered engineers,

51:20 and they are now being used for conducting the boiler inspection.

51:23 Earlier it was being done by the officials themselves.

51:25 So to that extent,

51:27 rent seeking,

51:28 uh,

51:29 will reduce,

51:29 has reduced,

51:31 but certainly not eradicated,

51:32 not eliminated

51:34 on the road safety,

51:35 uh,

51:36 yes,

51:36 uh,

51:37 there are,

51:37 there are issues,

51:39 and the accidents happen mostly

51:41 in the cities,

51:43 not as much on the highways.

51:44 Highways are better organized

51:46 in the city,

51:47 uh,

51:47 so there is,

51:48 let me,

51:48 uh,

51:48 also inform I think the viewers,

51:50 there is a body in India which is dedicated to riding standards on the road safety.

51:54 It's called the Indian Roads Congress.

51:57 It is,

51:57 it predates

51:58 the BIS.

52:00 They have written a lot of standards on road safety.

52:02 They're all good standards.

52:04 They match the international standards.

52:06 Compliance is horribly low.

52:09 So the agencies involved in developing

52:11 the roads

52:12 don't adhere to those standards,

52:14 and they're not real mechanisms.

52:16 There is very little accountability

52:18 on,

52:18 on the roads.

52:19 Uh,

52:19 the second is the driving,

52:20 so accidents happen because of driving behavior.

52:23 So driving behavior again,

52:24 you asked the right question.

52:25 Driver certification.

52:27 Yes,

52:27 driver's certification,

52:28 we have the,

52:29 I mean,

52:29 the protocols are absolutely fine,

52:31 nothing wrong with them.

52:33 The actual process of certification is again quite weak

52:36 and then the behavior and the

52:38 and the control,

52:39 actual control on the road

52:41 of behavior

52:42 is also quite low

52:43 now with technology actually

52:45 coming up,

52:46 so they are installing a lot of uh you know surveillance

52:50 equipment

52:51 and they're actually able to to catch and I

52:53 have received for example before my own car,

52:55 uh you know uh.

52:57 Uh,

52:57 fines for actually overstepping,

52:59 let's say sometimes,

53:00 uh,

53:01 uh,

53:02 you know,

53:02 uh,

53:02 uh,

53:03 a red light,

53:04 uh,

53:04 the thing.

53:05 So,

53:06 uh,

53:07 so that is starting to happen.

53:08 Hopefully that will

53:10 take care.

53:10 Highways have are becoming much,

53:12 much more,

53:12 much,

53:13 much better.

53:14 So hopefully properly barricaded.

53:16 Hopefully accidents on the highways will,

53:18 will go down.

53:19 Uh,

53:20 on medical labs,

53:22 yes,

53:22 uh,

53:22 the figure that I showed to you,

53:24 Devesh,

53:24 was voluntary accreditation.

53:26 That's not mandatory.

53:27 So there are other mechanisms available for the medical labs,

53:31 something which there is something called a

53:33 clinical stablishment Act,

53:35 which is again adopted statewide,

53:37 and the states are implementing those.

53:38 So there is a minimal

53:40 regulatory framework and standards for the medical labs,

53:43 but if they go for the uh for the NABL,

53:46 that places them at a very high pedestal.

53:47 So it's

53:48 taken more for

53:50 their marketing promotion or for,

53:51 you know,

53:51 for for competition purposes.

53:54 Rather than for compliance.

53:55 So that's answering that question.

53:57 Yeah,

53:57 I think I've answered all questions,

53:58 yeah,

53:59 yeah,

53:59 thanks.

54:03 Thank you so much.

54:04 A problem.

54:04 I would have not thought they were able to like answer all of the best uh questions,

54:08 uh,

54:08 especially so quickly.

54:10 Thanks for that.

54:11 Uh,

54:11 Siddharth,

54:11 over to you.

54:14 Yeah,

54:14 thanks,

54:14 Anupam.

54:15 I've actually,

54:16 I mean,

54:16 you have answered sort of the,

54:18 the question,

54:19 uh,

54:20 uh,

54:21 which I'm going to ask,

54:21 but I think,

54:22 I think maybe ask a little more specifically.

54:24 So in 2021,

54:25 20202022,

54:26 there was this Gambia case

54:28 where

54:29 the cough syrup from India led to

54:31 the death of about 67 children in Ghana,

54:34 and then there were issues with,

54:36 it was an industry called Maiden Pharmaceuticals

54:39 from Haryana which was making that cough syrup

54:41 now.

54:42 I was just reading

54:43 here and there,

54:44 and

54:45 they were talking about that,

54:46 OK,

54:47 the issue from India's side was the compliance.

54:50 There was no quality testing when,

54:52 uh,

54:52 when the medicines went.

54:53 And then from Gambia's side was that they don't have enough

54:56 sort of labs to test.

54:58 In fact,

54:58 they sent to Senegal or to Europe to test those

55:02 cases.

55:02 Uh,

55:03 and then again,

55:04 it's not

55:05 from a peer reviewed paper or somewhere,

55:07 just general reading.

55:08 I don't know if it is right or wrong.

55:09 There was a case where they were saying that,

55:11 uh.

55:12 Uh,

55:13 in India,

55:13 India is not at fault because,

55:15 uh,

55:16 this is for export and it is the importer who has to test it.

55:19 India,

55:20 India for domestic,

55:21 for domestic,

55:22 they have a different kind of testing,

55:24 more,

55:24 more stringent maybe testing.

55:26 So is that true first

55:28 and,

55:28 and I wouldn't be able to actually comment on the very last.

55:30 Point that you made about export,

55:32 whether there is a regulation in India,

55:34 because for many other products

55:36 there is actually a requirement for even control of products for exports.

55:40 Pharma,

55:41 I'm not 100% sure,

55:42 but let me try and give you some uh answer to this,

55:47 although it's not my area of work.

55:49 Uh,

55:49 see,

55:50 the,

55:50 the product that,

55:52 uh,

55:52 cough syrups that actually cause those deaths,

55:55 they have to,

55:56 I mean,

55:56 any medical,

55:57 uh,

55:57 uh,

55:58 drug has 22 kinds of,

56:00 I mean,

56:00 uh,

56:00 ingredients.

56:01 One is the active ingredient,

56:02 which is the actual drug,

56:04 and the other are called the XCPNs,

56:05 you know,

56:05 which actually go on to either process the drug or actually

56:08 they are the matrix or,

56:09 you know,

56:09 they added constituent.

56:10 They're not drugs,

56:11 they're the exCPNs.

56:13 So in India,

56:14 the active

56:15 pharma ingredients,

56:16 they are under very strict regimen.

56:18 And the regulator,

56:20 uh,

56:20 you know,

56:20 the CDSCO,

56:21 which we have here

56:23 again federated,

56:24 so there are

56:25 bodies in every state,

56:26 so the regular inspections of the companies take place

56:30 for CPNs.

56:31 Actually we have a pharmacopeia in India

56:33 which prescribe the the standards of what is to be used,

56:38 but the enforcement or the regulation is not very,

56:41 uh

56:42 very,

56:42 very stringent.

56:44 So,

56:45 uh,

56:45 this

56:46 incident happened,

56:47 I think it was the ethanol,

56:48 uh,

56:49 in the,

56:49 in the cough syrup.

56:51 Uh,

56:51 which caused the,

56:53 yeah,

56:53 glycol,

56:54 exactly,

56:54 exactly,

56:54 it's lying glycol,

56:55 precisely.

56:56 That was the CCPent actually.

56:57 It was not the active,

56:59 uh,

57:00 that had actually caused post this incident,

57:02 post the incident,

57:04 there have been,

57:05 of course,

57:05 a flurry of,

57:06 uh,

57:06 you know,

57:07 inspections and controls and

57:09 suspensions and a lot of things and also the,

57:11 the technical committee at the CA CDSCO,

57:14 they met.

57:15 And they have taken a view that some of the important excipients

57:19 would be

57:20 placed under the,

57:21 you know,

57:22 like Schedule M as they call it

57:23 here in India,

57:24 which should be treated at par with the active ingredient.

57:28 So I think that's what's probably going to happen

57:30 because it could have happened in India as well,

57:32 you know,

57:32 so

57:33 because exCPN are actually quite outside

57:35 the stringent control that is applied to the active,

57:39 active ingredients.

57:40 So that's,

57:41 I think that's my knowledge.

57:42 I said that I,

57:43 I wouldn't be able to go beyond this

57:45 because it's really not my subject,

57:47 but,

57:47 uh,

57:47 yeah,

57:48 so

57:48 yeah.

57:50 Thanks.

57:52 I see we're already at the end of the time,

57:53 but,

57:54 um,

57:55 Charlie has his hand up,

57:56 so I'll

57:57 hand over to the boss.

58:00 Uh,

58:00 no,

58:00 no,

58:01 uh,

58:01 so,

58:02 uh,

58:02 so Anupam,

58:03 you,

58:03 you,

58:04 um,

58:05 So,

58:05 you talk about,

58:06 um,

58:08 um,

58:08 you know,

58:09 uh,

58:09 standards that are,

58:11 you know,

58:11 complying with the international standards.

58:13 They're quite,

58:14 they're quite stringent and at the same time,

58:17 you talk about,

58:18 uh,

58:19 the enforcement of standards and compliance of standards,

58:22 which is a bit lagging behind.

58:24 I mean,

58:24 so,

58:24 there's,

58:25 there's

58:25 partial enforcement or partial compliance.

58:28 And so,

58:29 so,

58:29 the question here is,

58:31 You know,

58:31 why not,

58:32 and it is actually goes at the heart of

58:34 one of the potential recommendations for the report,

58:37 which is,

58:38 why not then,

58:39 uh,

58:40 sort of,

58:41 you know,

58:41 lower standards or,

58:43 you know,

58:44 uh,

58:44 sort of,

58:45 you know,

58:46 you know,

58:47 lower the stringency of standards

58:49 to the point where compliance can be,

58:52 can be,

58:52 can be done perfectly

58:54 and then sort of ratchet,

58:56 you know,

58:57 increase steadily

58:58 the stringency.

59:00 As you build capacity,

59:01 as you build enforcement,

59:03 And as the,

59:04 the industrial base

59:06 can,

59:06 can actually comply with,

59:07 with,

59:08 with set standards.

59:09 So,

59:09 so,

59:10 you know,

59:10 so there,

59:11 there seems to be,

59:11 again,

59:11 there seems to be a,

59:12 a,

59:13 a gap between

59:15 the jure and de facto standards.

59:18 And so,

59:19 what can be done,

59:20 uh,

59:21 or should,

59:21 should anything be done to,

59:23 to sort of,

59:24 again,

59:24 bring,

59:25 bring standards down to a level

59:27 where compliance can be,

59:28 can be,

59:29 can be 100%.

59:30 And then,

59:31 you know,

59:31 once,

59:32 once we then,

59:33 then,

59:33 then,

59:34 you know,

59:34 increase up the,

59:36 the,

59:36 the,

59:37 you know,

59:38 the,

59:38 the,

59:38 the stringency standards or,

59:40 you know,

59:40 does,

59:40 does,

59:40 does that resonate

59:42 and if,

59:42 and if,

59:43 if so,

59:44 what,

59:44 you know,

59:44 why,

59:44 why is this not happening.

59:47 Yeah,

59:47 but,

59:47 uh,

59:48 Shavi,

59:48 that won't really happen because

59:51 by,

59:51 by definition,

59:53 uh,

59:53 requirement standard when it is written by a national body or international body,

59:58 it is called a minimum standard always

1:00:01 it is,

1:00:01 it is highly compromised that at least this

1:00:05 must be met

1:00:06 now

1:00:07 and the standard is built by consensus

1:00:10 that means there is a committee of about 40 or 50 experts coming from different,

1:00:14 different,

1:00:14 uh,

1:00:15 stakeholders.

1:00:16 And they write the standard.

1:00:17 It's never written by an authority.

1:00:19 That is,

1:00:19 it's,

1:00:20 it's,

1:00:20 it's a to standard.

1:00:22 Uh,

1:00:23 what really happens is that

1:00:25 the MSME's participation in the standards writing process is less.

1:00:29 Their representation is less.

1:00:30 They're not able to articulate and even compliance

1:00:34 in a developing country by MSMEs is very challenging because

1:00:38 MSMEs are always hard pressed for cash.

1:00:40 Let me,

1:00:40 that,

1:00:41 that's,

1:00:41 it's a known fact everywhere,

1:00:43 at at least in the developing countries.

1:00:45 So they have to cut,

1:00:46 they need to cut corners,

1:00:48 and that's what really happens.

1:00:50 And therefore,

1:00:51 uh,

1:00:52 you know,

1:00:52 in the market when you see a product,

1:00:54 uh,

1:00:54 it could be,

1:00:55 therefore it is,

1:00:56 it is compromised

1:00:57 when we have these,

1:00:58 so compliances come in two ways.

1:01:00 One is,

1:01:00 of course the voluntary certification.

1:01:02 In voluntary,

1:01:03 you'll find the degree of compliance is fairly high,

1:01:06 yeah,

1:01:07 actually,

1:01:07 because,

1:01:07 you know,

1:01:08 there would still be so maybe 90%,

1:01:10 95%,

1:01:11 even higher.

1:01:12 It becomes mandatory and there is a phase of mandating as well.

1:01:15 It takes time for the industry to actually come up to that level,

1:01:19 everyone together.

1:01:20 So that's the time when actually enforcement,

1:01:22 everything is also not very strong

1:01:24 and people are not yet geared up to meet,

1:01:27 uh,

1:01:27 you know,

1:01:28 standards.

1:01:30 So by everyone,

1:01:30 are you,

1:01:31 are you advocating a tier approach where,

1:01:33 where maybe,

1:01:35 you know,

1:01:35 beyond.

1:01:35 It has been tried.

1:01:36 tiered approach has been tried.

1:01:38 I think

1:01:39 South Africa probably tried it.

1:01:41 We also put sometimes grades in the standards like,

1:01:44 uh,

1:01:45 I remember in the steel standards

1:01:48 there would always be a grade called an ordinary grade and a standard grade,

1:01:51 and you need to then,

1:01:53 but then when,

1:01:53 whenever you have a grade in standards.

1:01:56 Very important is then that the labeling should be very accurate.

1:02:00 A consumer must know

1:02:02 that he's actually buying an inferior grade and there is a compromise involved.

1:02:07 This is what he should expect.

1:02:09 That's quite challenging.

1:02:10 It's not easy actually because.

1:02:12 Manufacturers don't like to do that,

1:02:14 to declare it so openly consumers don't comprehend,

1:02:17 don't understand,

1:02:19 so this is not a very,

1:02:20 very good,

1:02:21 uh,

1:02:21 you know,

1:02:22 approach to actually have this differing grades and a lower grade.

1:02:26 It is best to give time to industry to upgrade.

1:02:29 That's what I have always been advocating and probably

1:02:31 that we should also be putting in the report

1:02:33 if you want to implement uh any mandatory regime of standards,

1:02:38 you have to give time to the industry.

1:02:40 You can't just do it in 1 year's time or 2 years' time,

1:02:43 it could even take as long as 5 years.

1:02:45 So it,

1:02:46 do that in a graduated manner,

1:02:48 you know,

1:02:48 do that,

1:02:49 you know,

1:02:49 so maybe

1:02:50 like in India,

1:02:51 one approach has been recently tried,

1:02:53 when they put up a new quality control order,

1:02:55 they say,

1:02:56 for the large industry,

1:02:57 we give you 12 months' time,

1:02:59 for the

1:03:00 uh SMEs.

1:03:02 Uh,

1:03:02 it is 6,

1:03:02 18 months,

1:03:03 and microindustry,

1:03:04 it is 24 months,

1:03:06 so there is a graduation.

1:03:07 It's still not enough.

1:03:09 They will still need more time,

1:03:10 but there is an approach at least available

1:03:12 for the,

1:03:13 for the enforcement and the implementation.

1:03:16 I see.

1:03:17 Right.

1:03:19 That's,

1:03:19 that was,

1:03:20 uh,

1:03:20 yeah,

1:03:20 really

1:03:21 central point for us.

1:03:22 I'm glad you asked that,

1:03:23 Chami,

1:03:23 um,

1:03:24 and,

1:03:24 and thanks for the response.

1:03:26 And,

1:03:26 um,

1:03:27 uh,

1:03:28 so I'd like so many questions,

1:03:29 but I'm also aware that we are um already 7 minutes um beyond the time.

1:03:34 So we'd like to thank you again,

1:03:35 Anup Pang,

1:03:36 uh,

1:03:36 for this really rich,

1:03:37 uh,

1:03:37 presentation,

1:03:38 um,

1:03:38 and also the,

1:03:39 the background paper.

1:03:41 Um,

1:03:41 I think like for any other questions,

1:03:43 we might just like stay in touch,

1:03:44 but otherwise we'll officially uh close the seminar.

1:03:48 Also thank everyone for joining.

1:03:49 Um,

1:03:50 the slides are also gonna be made available

1:03:53 on the WDR website,

1:03:54 um,

1:03:55 and the recording as well,

1:03:56 so everyone can,

1:03:57 um,

1:03:57 yeah,

1:03:58 check there as well.

1:04:00 Right.

1:04:00 Thank you so much,

1:04:01 everyone.

1:04:02 Thank you very much.

1:04:03 Thank you,

1:04:03 Philip.

1:04:04 Thank you.

1:04:04 Bye everyone.

1:04:05 Bye Devesh.

1:04:05 Bye Shavi.

1:04:06 bye everyone.

1:04:07 Thank you.

1:04:08 Thank you for having me.

1:04:09 Bye-bye.

1:04:09 Take care.

1:04:10 Bye.

showAllTimestamps

no

transcript

To everyone, first, uh, welcome to, I think, which is the 5th edition of the World Development Report Seminar Series. Um, today, we're gonna zoom in on India's experience with standards and the implementation. Um, so I'm Philip Grinstead. I'm a part of the WDR team, uh, working in the global team on private sector competitiveness and leading the work on quality infrastructure, um, in the WDR. Um, and I'm really delighted to have, um, what I think is probably like the prime, um, expert actually on India's standards and quality infrastructure system, uh, with us today. Uh, so Anupam, Anupam Kal is gonna, uh, give the presentation. Anupam has a long career working in this field, um, and I think what, what makes his experience especially interesting is that he very well knows the work of the government. So he was, uh, for many years at the Bureau of Indian Standards and various functions. But he was also on the side of the industry, um, on the side of the Confederation of Indian Industries, which is, um, one of the APEC industry associations in India. where he led the quality, quality work and was really like a driving force on the development of India's uh quality infrastructure system and of course today still is, uh, very much so. Um, and so after Arup Pump's presentation, uh, we will have uh Devesh um give a um intervention. So Devesh is the academic lead, um, at, um, uh, on, on the WEDR. Uh, just like very few points on housekeeping, uh, so for information, this meeting is being recorded. Um, the, uh, presentation is gonna be approximately 30 minutes, um, so we're gonna have Q&A afterwards. Um, as I just said, uh, I think given this is a small group, please feel free to, um, raise your hand if you have like any questions where you want to come in or like put it in the chat. Um, And maybe you want to also briefly introduce yourself uh when you ask a question, so you know, as we know who who you are. Um, but without further ado, um, I see more people joined, so like, uh, welcome everyone who just, uh, joined. Um, let me hand over to Anna Pen for the presentation. Yeah, thanks, Philip. Uh, so, and, uh, let me also welcome everyone from my, my end, and it's a, it's a privilege to be talking to you on this subject, uh, which is, uh, about appraising the standards development in India and how it actually helped in the economic development. So I have a presentation and I'll upload it and then we can, uh, run it through, uh, yeah, so give me a moment. Mhm. Yeah, OK. Let me know if it is uh visible my screen. Yes, we can see it. If you could, um, I'll do a presentation, yeah, just to. So You know, um, a bit of a difficult just, yeah. Yeah, OK, yes, of course. So, OK, thank you, Philip, and yeah, so, uh, so this is the topic that we are going to be, uh, uh, discussing, appraising the role of standardization in India's economic development, and, uh, this is how, uh, you know, this presentation has been made and my talk will revolve around these essentially how the standards have contributed to India's economic development. How did we ensure compliance through voluntary and mandatory regimes? Also, uh, how did the, uh, quality infrastructure evolve, uh, together with the standards and supported, uh, development? And then what are the learning from, uh, from India. India has been, is a very diverse country. It has a long history, uh, and, uh, multiple languages, different, uh, uh, economic segments. So it's, it's extremely diverse country. So therefore, uh, uh, it's, it's a good case to look at for, uh. For other countries as well, developing countries. So just to explain first of all what is quality infrastructure and how it evolved in India, so for any, any country, uh, quality infrastructure denotes. Uh, it's, it's a combination, uh, collection of bodies who are responsible for ensuring quality, safety, and suitability of goods and services with, so these are the components and standards development. Then something called conformity assessment, which is certification inspection testing. And meteorology also is testing, but then it's more than that. These are the three main pillars of quality infrastructure. And then it, uh, uh, capacity building is also quite important when it comes to, uh, quality infrastructure. So all countries actually do a lot of training, consulting kind of activity advising for the quality infrastructure to develop and then technical regulations are actually a consumer of quality infrastructure, but they, they work very much hand in hand and in many cases they actually overstep into standards and conformity assessment. So, um, uh, many countries actually take them together with the quality infrastructure. So, uh, over the years, not only in India but maybe globally, we'll, I use the term QI for quality infrastructure. Its role has been extended beyond quality to to cover other aspects as well, environment protection, people's health, safety, and security, as you know, uh, so, uh, we have standards on environment management, we have standards on cybersecurity and health and safety and all kinds. So all of them are standards, and all of them require certification, so part of the quality infrastructure. And in India, of course, the, the, it's been a century-long history of development and societal needs. So just for everybody's knowledge, India was a British colony till 1947 and got independent then 1947, and at that time it was actually in, in economically in a very ruinous state, very bad shape, hardly any industrial development, uh, uh, was there, so, and 35, 350 million people, uh, you know, so mostly agro-based economy. So the, uh, the major work started for economy building from 1947 onwards, and that's when the standards also started contributing. So, uh, therefore it has been both reactive and proactive planning. I mean reactive in many ways, uh, to government policy, to developments elsewhere in the world, and also in many cases proactive. So we'll talk about them later. And there was an early recognition in India that standards are going to play an important role in the industrial development and therefore, uh, uh, the then Prime Minister Mr. Jawal Nehru, the, he, one of the initial, uh, uh, initiative was then established in the National Standards Body, uh, which is called the Indian Standards Institution at that time. Now it's called the Bureau of Indian Standards, and also the National Meteorological Institute, the National Physical Laboratory. Uh, was, uh, was established under his, uh, initiative and, and, and guidance. So realizing that this is going to play an important role. So this is a slide which actually give you, uh, historical, uh, uh, milestones of India's QI development. There are three phases here as you see in the red water pre-independence, post-independence, and then there is something which is called post-liberalization. There was a watershed year in India in 1991 when the economy actually opened up. Before that it was a very controlled economy, and there was a lot of licensing and approval required even for setting up an industry in India. So it was only after that, you know, that, uh, the, the, the regulation, the rules and everything that got eased up and become much easier to do business and so it in a way it opened the economy and as you see on the screen, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but actually you can see how at different points of time, uh, during the history, uh, many of these institutions came up, uh, before independence also there were the railways and defense and all these, these were the important sectors, uh, that was being attended to those. And then subsequently, you know, after the independence, some of these institutes came up, as I said, BIS and NPL, and some important acts came up. A specific body called Export Inspection Council was set up to take care of exports and quality in exports. Uh, it doesn't happen everywhere in other countries, but India still have, we still have it. And then, uh, post liberal liberalization, it was all setting up the accreditation boards and, you know, enhancing their role and, uh, revising the, the IS Act, so on. So just to highlight this aspect, so how the development in India as a developing country, as a diverse country, is different from the developed nations. So in the developed countries, the QI development, the standards development have been more organic, and they had a longer time to do that actually. I mean it's more than a century of doing it. India's story actually began only after 1947. And they have been driven by industrialization and of course we have seen the different phases of industrialization, so, uh, and consumer movements. India's development has been more centrally planned because of, you know, uh, it was actually nation building, so at least in the initial phases. Then India's, uh, you know, uh, the whole country is, is huge, it's big, the scale is very, very large, uh, it's not the most populous country in the world. It's generally been the 2 or 3 and then the diversity of the Indian economy as I mentioned earlier, culturally so, so different, uh, uh, every state is different, uh, uh, requirements are different, climate is different, so it presents very unique challenges in implementing and enforcing standards compared to smaller countries, you know, we're much more homogeneous, uh, you know, most of the developed nations like in Europe are very homogeneous. The level of awareness also, uh, you know, uh, is required for, for developing the quality infrastructure which was not as good and still not as good because literacy rates were also very low in India, so the demand for high quality products and services, uh, was also not very, very high. In any case, the supply was not there in a controlled economy, so that, uh, so there was no ambition or exposure to high quality products, which is different from developed countries. They were, they were always being referred to resource constraints, especially in terms of expertise and standards development, quality infrastructure, testing, certification, research for this, all of them require expertise. So as of now things are much, much improved, much, much better. But over the history this has been, uh, the issues of constraints and which is different from the developed countries. And then, uh, developed countries have used standardization as a tool for technical convergence that means for the industrial development, uh, both for domestic market and for exports. So, and to, to get market leadership. I mean Germany is one of the countries which is known for this. China is doing it now. I mean, I mean the, the manufacturing policy for 0 2025. They have now a standards policy for 2035 precisely based on this convergence and market leadership through standards. So, um, India's development has focused broadly on, uh, socio-economic development goals. I mean, we have been, uh, plagued with poverty reduction, rural development, many things. So that was the story. Things are quite different now, but historically this is how it has been. So just quickly, I mean, I'll some slides I'll just run through very quickly because we so that we can focus more on the substantive uh topics. So this is what the the BIS set up in 1947 and it's the main body for setting up national standards in India and initially, uh, the work was aligned with something which are called five year plans, which is by the, which is a government method of, uh, you know, uh, approaching development. So they made 5 year goals and targets, and those are plans funds were allocated with certain targets. So the Indian standards development was aligned in the first two plans with uh with the 5 year plans of of the country, and they uh uh focused, I mean the standards plan on basic engineering standards and some of the words that you see here variety reduction, import substitution, interoperability. So this is not very specific to India at that time, even globally, uh, this was the, the, the focus areas. Variety reduction is a very important component of development. Because it improves efficiency and all countries also look for import substitution interoperability even today is very, very valid as we talk on this machine today. It's all because of interoperability. So all these things were quite important and uh, uh, in India, I mean some of the initial contributions which are very, very specific were um the metrication of the entire country from the British system, the foot pound system to the SIA SI system was a major activity which BIAS or ISI supported very, very, very well. Uh, rationalizing steel production because, uh, you know, it was very important to actually reduce the consumption of steel, uh, so the standards helped develop the lighter sections of steel, uh, you know, and that actually helped in reducing consumption by 15 to 20% of steel with the same, uh, end results. So, and then other sectors you would put bicycles, all of them. And then in 1955, BIS launched or ISI launched a product certification scheme because there was no other conformity assessment in India. This was the only one, and it prevailed for a very, very long time till almost about late 1980s. There was only one scheme in India, which was the ISI mark scheme or the product certification scheme. It became quite popular initially because of government uh preference. Uh, the agencies started buying ISMR products as an assurance of quality. Later it became, you know, more popular among consumers, and government started also using the scheme for mandating product compliances and some of the products that you see here, cement and LPG cylinders, and electrical appliances. Were actually brought under mandatory certification quite early, uh, some of them in early 70s, 80s like that. Now we have a much larger repertoire of these products under mandatory certification, but this was the beginning. So the phases of India's development, of course, as I mentioned earlier, early interventions were driven by safety and health needs and also of course the demands of the growing infrastructure in the country. So, uh, inspections and certifications, they integrated with regulations. That were critical for industry and, and people like food safety and agricultural products, boilers, and you see an example later on. So the inspection and certifications went hand in hand, you know, as you develop the regulation, the same regulator will go on to do the inspection, even legal meteorology, so they would, they would do it themselves. Later on, now we have much more division of work, but many regulators, even today, they conduct the certification and inspections. And it also led to the establishment of the quality organizations which are responsible for the conformity assessment programs. So as I mentioned, the pre-independence era focused on basic inspection and standardization, prima primarily in the railways and defense. Post-independence, it was more of nation building, import substitution, and establishment of the ISI and the BIS, and emphasis was on domestic quality and the self-reliance. And then in 1991 where the paradigm shift took place in India, so the economy opened up and this was a time when import substitution was of course still valid, but then the first thoughts started to emerge that we can also be an exporting country. So of course exports in India started with minerals and, you know, metals and things like those, but went up the value value chain, uh, and it's, it's very diverse right now, but that all started in 1991. So greater emphasis on quality for international markets. So that's what started happening and then because of that also the harmonization, the international standards, this started taking shape till such time the standards that were made in India, the original in India, were all, uh, homegrown based on internal requirements, internal uh in the domestic market, uh, which is not exposed to the international market, but this was a time when actually this harmonization started actually taking place after 1991. And new sectors came up automotive, uh, engineering, telecom, pharma, construction, textiles, all of these required, uh, updated quality infrastructure and also standards, and that's why the, uh, the international standards started playing a much bigger role, uh, in India. Then also the increased incomes and consumption. It also led to the consumer demand because of higher exposure, higher, higher money in hand. And, uh, uh, foreign products started coming into the Indian market, so that made the paradigm change in terms of expectations from a consumer point of view. So demand, uh, started also placing, uh, you know, the, the demand grew and it placed, uh, uh, you know, uh, requirements for these international standards and quality schemes to come in to be able to cater to those, uh, growing aspirations from consumers. Sorry, so can I, can I ask you a question? Yeah, yeah, surely, I actually, because my full screen is on, so you have to speak up. Yeah, OK, surely, yes, of course, yeah, no, no, no, thank you. So, uh, when you talk about, uh, more harmonization with international standards following the liberalization, uh, following the liberalization, so what happened to the ISI mark? Was that kind of dropped uh in favor for in favor of, uh, um, again, you know, maybe you know international again international standards or and and how costly was that I mean how different was the ISI mark to to international standards? I mean how, how was the process of, of harmonization and what, what exactly happened to the, to the national so ISI mark? Yeah, so I'll explain. So first of all, uh, the ISI mark is actually a scheme which is run on the Indian standard. And uh when, whenever the Indian standard actually transposed into an international standard, enough time was given to the industry for the quality infrastructure, maybe sometime 2 years, 3 years, 4 years' time. To, to upgrade themselves and it was and every standard that was harmonized actually came through that committee set up so through consensus so it wasn't actually enforced or forced upon upon the industry. It was a gradual process, but the but the it it set into motion so the ISMmark scheme never actually got disturbed because of the adoption of the international standards. It just eased into it, moved into it, and the first products, uh, uh, were in, uh, electrical electronic sector. Uh, and it made much more sense because, uh, there was a lot of interoperability issues and there was a lot of imports taking place in India and then some export markets also started, so that is where it actually began and then went into many other products so it wasn't as difficult, uh, uh, to adopt because time was given and, uh, government, BIS, they all stepped up, you know, to, to assist the industry, so industry was supported, yeah. Yeah, OK. That's OK. Is that OK? That's perfect. Thank you so much. Perfect. Thank you. OK, thank you. Yeah, OK. So, uh, so then the greater emphasis on conformity assessment and accreditation to build trust in Indian products and the services internationally, and that's why, you know, this, uh, setting up of the accreditation boards in India played a very important role because that's, that's kind of a, uh, you know, it's a, it's a, uh, it's a tool for market access across the world, you know, because they're based on multilateral, uh, agreements and, uh, multilateral MRIs, so there is equivalence, uh, through these schemes. And not only the accreditation programs, even many of the regulators, for example, in telecom, in automotive, in food, even they joined their in their respective international forums to be able to contribute and also to adopt those regulatory standards, uh, you know, so automotive in particular was, uh, quite aggressive in that. Right now we have actually in the, in the mobile, uh, and, uh, internet, uh, domain that one of the DSDOs in India is quite aggressive on that, right. Some sectoral examples of early technical regulations, one of them, of course, was, uh, boilers, and boilers is quite important actually globally because, you know, these standards are adopted worldwide and they constitute a very important aspect of industrial safety. So this was, uh, and this is actually composed of a lot of standards, conformity assessment schemes put together. It's, it's a package. So that's why I've flagged it here and it started before independence in 1937. And this was delivered through, you know, a very federated structure. India is a federal economy, so delegated to the state government, they set up offices in each state for boiler control and similarly for the food regulations as well. We started in 1954, became consolidated in 2006, but then again, uh, you know, the, the, the implementation of conformity ass been and regulatory practices. It's again quite decentralized to the to the states and also for the legal meteorology which is quite important again started in 1956 after independence coincided also with the OIML, which is a global body for legal meteorology, and then we have a more consolidated version from 2009 onwards again it's it's decentralized but works very closely with the National Meteorological Institute, which is the NPL. In India and these are the other sectors, you know, where, where standards played a very important role in their development of the respective industry at different points of time. So private in 1960, jute and again 1960 to 1970s. The jute is a very important uh product for India actually uh we are the largest producer and. A lot of export happening to products, so this industry was supported by writing a number of standards and also reducing variety. There were a huge number of varieties to, to, to, to consolidate them. So this worked very nicely. Steel, I mentioned, I mean, the steel economy, uh, came through the standard standards process, and then construction in 1970 we built the National Building Code, uh, so that's when it brought to order the building construction in India together with a number of other standards for construction. Then potable drinking water, this was a mission in India for, uh, for the rural sector, uh, you know, to ensure safe water, safe drinking water for them. It was a mission drawn from 1987 to 2002. BIS standards played a very, very important role in assuring the quality of drinking water and also developing standards for, for, uh, for the tube wells and for the hand pumps, uh, which were actually the mainstay for drinking water in the, in the rural areas. The automotive, uh, story started in 1989, uh, where again standards played a very important role, not necessarily from the BIS, but otherwise, you know, the, the international standards came in and they played a very important role in developing a very tiered structure in India. Telecom products 94 onwards and precious metal hallmarking of gold 2001 onwards and currently, I mean we're working on of course beyond solar PV is green hydrogen where again standards are actually leading the, the development of the green hydrogen ecosystem in India. So different sectors at different points of time, the standards have played a very important role and currently also, and this is of course uh uh when I had my discussion with Deve, she was very particular to asking this question about how we standards have actually helped in digital India. So there's a division in BIS called LITD with uh the full name is given here at the top, Electronics and Information Technology Department. So this is very much aligned with the digital transformation happening in India right now, and we have many policies right now. If you see at the bottom of the slide Digital India program, then we have the National Electronic Policy of India, national policy on software products, cybersecurity policy, all of these. So the work going on by this division at the domestic level is on safety, cybersecurity, system integration, uh, societal concern across IT, smart technologies, all of this, and the future plans are on IoT, blockchain, and, uh, artificial intelligence, wearable devices. AI, in fact, India is playing a very important role in not only developing Indian standards, but also international standards. It's like So it's, it's quite a line and doing a fairly good job in this domain. So this is the current status of, uh, the, uh, infrastructure. I mean we come through history. This is where we are right now. So we have the BIES, which is the National Standards Body, Meteorology, we have the NPL, and we also have the Department of Legal Meteorology, and then in conformity assessment, of course we have the BIS scheme, the product certification scheme. And then, uh, in addition to that, we have now a lot, a lot of, uh, private bodies, certification bodies, inspection bodies. I just took a count, uh, before, before the seminar. So at this moment, there are 133 inspection bodies which are accredited in India and all 50, uh, magnet system certification bodies, about 40, uh, product certification bodies, uh, sorry, uh, uh, uh. Yeah, 40 certification bodies. So many of them, in addition, the commodity boards in India for silk, for tea, for spices, they all have their own conformity assessment schemes. So it's a very widely spread ecosystem of conformity assessment also. And then accreditation, of course, we have two major boards at ABCB. And the NABL, NABL for testing and calibration of laboratories, NABSB for certification inspection bodies under a single body which is called the Quality Council of India. So they have done fairly well. I'll show you the, uh, the numbers, uh, the next slide. And then we have technical regulations. So we have several regulatory bodies, and then many line ministries also act as the technical regulator themselves. So this constitutes in a way the quality infrastructure. So on the numbers of BIS uh published more than 22,000 Indian standards from an NSB perspective, I think probably Germany is number one, and they have published about 30,000 standards, but then Germany is really, very, very high on that, uh, so 22,000 standards for an economy generally is considered to be quite good across 17 division councils. Uh, then the harmonization of standards is 88% at this moment and the number is, uh, about 8600 standards. Uh, out of about 9400 possible standards which can be harmonized, the remaining is not possible to harmonize because very typically Indian standards, we don't have the equivalent standard in the ISO IEC levels. So that's the number and which is, I think, uh, among the best, uh, in terms of percentage. Uh, international participation, BIS, India has been very, very weak, and, uh, so this is an area which is of concern and it's now improving, of course. So we have Secretariat of 11 ISO. I write committees here actually it's not full committees. They're also including subcommittees. Uh, China, the same number is about 100 or so. It's like this. That's the difference. But then we are actually moving up the ladder can be the shape of 33 work groups in the ISO and 11 in IEC, which is a good number. This progress mostly has happened in the last 5 to 6 years' time. Right. And then the other SDOs in India, uh, 15 bodies are engaged in standards development and different sectors other than BIS, but BIS is now mandated to harmonize the effort of all the standard bodies in India through an act. One of the important bodies is the TSTSI, the tech, uh, the, uh, Telecom, uh, Standards Development Society. And they are an active contributor to 3 GPP standards for mobile telephony and also 112M for uh for IOT and and IIOT standards development. So they are developing Indian standards as well as quite, quite active in the international standards development. And uh BIS has recently developed a scheme for science developing organizations in 2020, but I think only 3 bodies have been accredited so far. Hopefully more will, will come forward in this one. But very important point to note here is the last, last bullet here. So many of these international SDOs like IEPE for electrotechnical products, ASTM of course for testing of materials, ASME for the oil and gas sector and pipelines, UL of course for product safety, IFO for plumbing, BSI, of course for multiple products. Their standards are very much prevalent in India, uh, used by industry wherever there's an international linkage. Mostly these standards actually apply. Uh, and Indian standards may not necessarily be used because of this, and so far there has not been much effort except with UL where BIS has been able to actually develop some kind of understanding or MOU for co-development or adoption of standards. So there is a duality currently in the Indian market, and this happens in other countries also. It's not only in India. This duality will continue because these standards are very powerful all over the world, so this will continue. So we need to do something more about this one. Uh, on meteorology and accreditation, we have NPL which has, uh, uh, calibration measurement capability in 236, uh, lines, which is not a very good number at all. Um, uh, uh, for example, I think, uh, Germany has, I think, almost about 3. 1000 or something like this, and France has 800 something, so that number is not very good, but then it is still serving the cause so far in India and 168 international comparisons. That's, that's just a number, but then I give you a measure of where we are today on this one. A lot of more work needs to be done here. Then we have the NAB NABR NAB NABCB. Uh, this is, of course I mentioned. Under Quality Council of India, and this body has been incidentally set up under a joint partnership of government and three APECT industry chambers, uh, and it operates autonomously. NABL at its, uh, testing laboratories, calibration laboratories, and also medical laboratories, uh, in India. Of course there are also 3 other private bodies which have been recently granted MRA membership by the, uh, by the AIPAC. So, uh, in terms of status they're equal to NABL, but in terms of numbers, uh, there's nowhere there. NABL is taken as a national body. Similarly, NABCB is also taken as a national accreditation body. It has 21 MRA recognition from APAC, which is a fairly good, uh, number. And these are some other numbers on the tree, I think which you can see here. So although BISS published 22,000 standards out of which about 10,000 are product standards, only 1,376 are under certification. So the rest are under self-implementation, not being used, or actually they cross refer to each other. But the numbers in terms of, uh, product certification is fairly good, 50,000 certification granted by BIS overseas, uh, 1800 standards. Hallmarking is 185,000, uh, uh, certification granted. In addition to this, this is outside BIS. So there is also a green building certification in India. Being done by leader of US and also Indian body called IGBC. So that's again a good number and this is growing very, very good, very well, uh, this Green Building certification. Then on the social side, uh, this again is SA 8000 is not BIS, it's actually an international body for social accountability. So these certifications in the social sector, uh, basically look after child labor, for example, and child and women development, labor union rights, labor rights, that means they address these, those, uh, uh requirements. Then we also have the energy labeling uh certificates, which is again, growing and fairly good number. On the right-hand side you see we have about 92,800 management system certification granted. Sorry about this. This is number 3 in the world, number 1 in Italy, then China, and then we have India on this one, and then we have the accretation, uh, uh, numbers, uh, the right hand side of the screen, bottom. So 430 odd laboratories, uh, accredited, uh, medical is about 2000 calibration is about, uh, uh, uh, 1100, so fairly good numbers, but again India is a very big country, so, uh, uh, but more or less I would say on the testing side, product testing side is fairly well established. On the medical side, it's, it's just a fraction. I mean we have a very, very large number of medical laboratories in India, so that has to really go on. This is a measure of the Global Quality infrastructure index. Many may not agree with this, but India's done fairly, very, very well on this and improved. So the overall rank out of 185 countries is 10, and in, um, standardization it is number 8, and in accreditation it is number 5. that is because of the establishment of the, of the bodies and the amount of work that they have done, the numbers that you have seen. So this figure comes from there and also participation in international standardization. OK, so technical regulations, of course, uh, globally and in India, there's increasing use of technical regulations by government bodies, uh, primarily, as you see on the screen is because of safety, health, and environment protection. But in reality it also actually extend to to a bit of uh uh protective uh tool uh for the economy. I think every country does that, so India is also uh doing it to some extent. There's an element of protection involved, but then, uh, otherwise it is essentially uh intended to be, uh, covering safety, health, and environment, and sometimes also, uh, you know, uh, deceptive trade practices. So, uh, some of the important sectors aligned, of course, with, uh, uh, global systems is on food, telecom, aviation, electrical, and there is now an effort to ensure transparency and stakeholder consultation in the development of technical regulatory regulation. So it's very fairly well established now. No, no regulation will come up without proper consultation within the, within the country. And also of course WTO is mandatory that a wider consultation, 60 days, uh, every regulation goes through that consultation process. So 9 regulatory bodies have been established in India for different sectors. For others is the aligned ministries which actually regulate. And then, uh, of late in the last 5 years we have been growing very aggressive on the number of standards of products that will be brought under mandatory certification from about 100 to 700 in the last 5 years. This has created some kind of a disruption in the market, certainly. So there has been accommodation by government extensions have been granted. Support. Has been granted, but this number is going to grow just for comparison, China has about 2700 standards under mandatory, uh, regime, so uh we have 700. So this number is certainly going to grow. Also omnibus regulations which cover the entire sectors, uh, uh, regulations have been issued on machinery, electrical appliances, medical devices, toys, and chemicals is in the offing. So now the, the final briefly, sorry, I think uh in the SWOT analysis part, I think you might have to like uh cut a little bit of the content just in terms of time. Yeah, I, I'll just show them, Philip, if it is all right. Is it OK? We can also share them afterwards, and then I'll do that. I'll do that, yeah, OK. So, so just to, to give a little small background, so in, in 2014, India started actually reviewing the quality infrastructure arrangements, and, uh, this forum was created by government and one of the chambers, CII, where I was working earlier. And this chamber, this forum was created to discuss where we are on the standards front on what infrastructure and why we are not able to actually push our exports. Commerce Ministry obviously was interested in exports. That's how it all started. So this forum was created and actually it emerged into a very nice forum to discuss very wide participation across the country. And in 2017 out of this forum, the SWOT analysis was done. So these were the strengths in India. I mean, I got a shortage of time. So just quickly go through, I mean you can read it. So this was the strength of India, but then more importantly, these were the weaknesses, so limitation of resources, lack of a framework to promote and consolidate standardization, lack of forums to articulate and prioritize needs for standards, a lot of multiplicity of standards, lack of adequate adequate participation. In the standard development process, lack of leadership in international standards development, and lack of coordination among standard bodies and agencies responsible for trade promotion, and lack of R&D to support standardization on conformity assessment. It was actually losing credibility of the marital system certification not only in India but everywhere else. At one point in time, these were supposed to be the, uh, you know, the, the highest order of certifications, but they have lost a lot of credibility and no domestic certification scheme actually has a global brand value, which is actually a very disconcerting factor, including the ISMR. Then lack of awareness among regulators to how to utilize the conformity assessment schemes, perception of cumbersome procedures, and government agencies not insisting for accredited certification. And no instrument available with the government to control unscrupulous and fraudulent certifications on this. What now on the, on the technical regulation side. So there is, uh, it was felt that we don't have a comprehensive regulation to modify technical regulations. We actually use different acts, uh, at the moment, so it's not very uniform at this particular moment, and many sectors did not have the technical regulation. Now we have, but at that time, 2017, we did not have. Lack of this is also very important lack of agile response mechanism to deal with technical regulations issued by other economies. So China actually has a very well established center for dealing with this issue. India, we have set up something. It is still quite weak, but so we have to have a mechanism to be able to respond very quickly to what developments happening elsewhere in the world. And then many standards of regulatory, uh, you know, regime are not aligned with international standards. Many regulators. Where, you know, we didn't have in many sectors and then so I I go to the next one and then these were the, because of this, these were the threats. So many countries, including Asian countries, they were moving up the ladder and becoming favored suppliers. MSME sector was getting challenged because of the dumping of products into India, cheaper uh materials happening elsewhere in the world as well. Increasing oversight, especially in Europe and other economies, posing very stiff challenge for exports of Indian products. Then of course dumping of substandard products. And then fast-paced IT enablement of manufacturing was also presenting a lot of difficulties. So these were the threats. I'll save the opportunities. And then this was, therefore this was built as a response, the IRSS, uh, document, and this has served as one of the key reference documents ever since, uh, we had this, uh, uh, you know, this was developed, and it is actually, if you see, read on the screen, many of the recommendations have actually been implemented. That means there is a coordination of standardization efforts now within the country agencies working together. A dedicated division have been set up for service sector standards in the BIS. They, you know, there has been stepping up of the notification of technical regulations. All the omnibus regulations have come up after this enhanced participation in international standardization. We're almost 90% of the committees we are represented at ISONIC. And uh with some funding support now we are actually able to fund people who are attending those meetings. It was not there earlier then establishing national mechanism for identification of real standards needs. This has actually become very, very, uh, very nice, including the industry bodies and the government ministries. They're able to do this. And then also some research element going into standards development. So my last slide is this one. I'm sorry, Philip, but I think we can probably go through this one as well. So these are the learning from our experience. One is that early government support in a developing country is important and also some investment is also quite important, but eventually the quality infrastructure will mature only with the active participation of the private sector in standard setting in meteorology, in conformity assessment. The US has 237 bodies developing standards. All are in the private sector and see only put them together, so that's, that's their success essentially. And then to align the standards efforts to the national priority sector. This is also quite important. So this is being done in India now, at least in the service sector. It is completely aligned. So there are 12 champion sectors decided by the government and the 19 divisions that we have in service services sector standards is all aligned to these 12 champion sectors, similarly in the manufacturing also. So the mechanism to identify the needs are extremely important for every developing country. Technical regulations support in discipline, disciplining the supplies in the market, but in the long term, voluntary compliance always works better because technical regulations always actually lead to some degree of compromise, fraudulent practices, and you need to have the mechanism to be able to control that. So voluntary compliance in terms of consumer choice and availability of better quality products is better. But we still need technical regulations and a developing phase to support the, the, you know, the to make the industry disciplined. When coordination among agencies is extremely challenging but essential to make the overall QI work efficiently, this is a challenge not only in developing countries, also in the developed countries everywhere. This is a challenge and problem. Harmonization of standards and participation in international standards development is challenging. It's cost is, is expensive, costly, uh, it requires effort, but it is, it is essential. It must be pursued. And forming regional alignments or using existing arrangements for standards cooperation help in improving trade as well as voice in the international forums. So I'll close with this. Sorry, I think it took a bit of a maybe another 5 extra 5 or 7 minutes. But then, uh, Philip, yeah, yeah, no, thank you so much, Anuppan. Um, it's, it's a challenge. It's a, it's a hugely technical topic. Um, and, and of course it touches upon, uh, so many areas of, of India's economy and societies. So pressing that into 30 minutes is a huge challenge. So thank you so much, Anupon for this rich presentation. And over to you Devesh, for, um, reactions, um, but let me also like use the opportunity to like ask, um, the other participants to put their questions in the chat or, or, um, raise your hand if you want to ask any. Yes. Thanks, Philip, uh, thanks, bump, uh. Just some, you know, broad question, because I'm sure my colleagues also have. One is, uh, If you can give us a better sense of the demand side for standards. Uh, so, broadly speaking, right, uh, the demand comes from firms, from industry bodies, from professional organizations, uh, that's, uh, from, uh, consumer groups. From uh built into government procurement, which it requires standards and that creates a demand. And one of the things that's interesting in countries like the US. A very important player in the demand for standards has been the defense industry. Yes. Among these Uh It would be, uh, it would be good to hear, and I just go over a few questions and then you can take whichever one you prefer. You know, how has, how has this demand evolved in India over time, because one, in India, professional organizations are much weaker. In the case of industry groups. It's not clear when they serve a role, you know, a coordination function. To create the demand for standards or when firms actually use it to stifle competition. Uh, which is certainly not unknown in India and elsewhere. A second set of questions is on the compliance part, you know, you mentioned repeatedly India being a federal country, uh, different states, as we know. The northern eastern states have much weaker capacity. And how has that affected the compliance? Do industries move to states with lower standards in certain areas? Is there sort of leakage, so to speak, because of this wide variance in capacity across the country? Yes. The third set of questions is is around safety standards. So I was just doing something on India's, uh, road safety. And if you think about the road. Over the past decade alone, uh, a million people in India have been killed in road fatalities. Now if you think of it, a million is a a pretty large number in the last 10 years, and if you read the literature, the analysis, you know, it's all from standards in road construction to standards in the certification of drivers, etc. etc. right? Again, this is regulated largely at the local level. A second example is you mentioned uh uh medical labs. Now, uh, the number you gave was that 2100, yeah, but there are the actual number of medical labs is 0.3 million. So just less than 1% of medical labs are actually certified. Now, someone might say, look, this is a big safety issue, why is it not mandatory? And, and just the last point, and then I'll stop, uh, because we've been doing something in the WDR on, on, on sort of boilers, and we have a background paper looking at the regulation in France, UK, and also in the US. Now the boiler inspection was seen as a classic license in Inspector Raj, you know, if you read the literature, and it was seen as a clear, uh, way of basically rent seeking behavior by government officials. Now you mentioned that this has now moved to the uh private sector in France and UK. They began to use sort of insurance mechanisms to raise the cost of poor maintenance. How is the evolution of border inspection sort of shows the broader evolution of the compliance mechanisms of standards in the country? I'll just stop there because I know we don't have much time and, and others have also some questions. Thank you. So yeah, so I'll answer one by one, Devesh, and some answers actually will, uh, will need a lot of explaining, but I'll try and make it as concise as possible. Standards demand, you said, uh, over time. So in over time, of course, I mentioned to you initially it was coming as a priority of the sectors, and demand was primarily there was a need articulation by the government side. And the, uh, you know, the agencies and BIS itself would be the, the writer of the standard. They would write the first draft. It wasn't, as of now, it doesn't happen that way. Now the draft comes to BIS ready from the industry. At that time it was the BIS officer sitting in the table. He'll do his own work, go and find out, and then write those standards. It was coming from, from there. So that is how the demand came. At one point in time, uh, Devesh, I'm, I'm, I'm not a very pleasant thing to say. Standards development also become a target-driven activity for the BIS officers at some point in time. Not a very bad thing actually, because I mean it's sort of sitting idle. So they were looking at, you know, identity trying to identify a subject, it's maybe maybe I'll write a standard on this something. They look at the some of the national standard, see if it is relevant to India, adopt it and do that. So that was, that was around, I would say, maybe in the 7 80s, mid 80s and 90s. As of now, what is happening, where is the demand coming from, you know, because of this regulatory regimen coming all over the world and also in India. And you mentioned this as well, so there is this degree of, uh, you know, competition as well as the desire for protection. I am myself consulting, advising many, many industries now who are, who I'm helping to write standards. They'll give it to the BIS, hoping that the standard, once it is developed, there will be certification around it and also hoping someday the government will actually mandate it. And once mandated, it actually gives them a protection. So as of now in many and in many instances it will be one industry and in many they will all come together as a as a consortium. And they will write a draft standard and make a case and then they will get to the give it to the PIS. So that's happening uh in the, in the manufacturing sector in services at this moment I chair a committee and many others do that. It's actually we are hard pressed to even identify a subject, so the committee itself, you know, we'll do a a kind of a debate and what more subject can we actually get to write a standard. So we are still there and service sector all over the world, there are hardly any standards. So to that extent we are doing. Actually, you know, better than many countries trying to write standards, so that's how it is coming. So on that standards demand side, uh, but not really much from the consumer side. It's primarily coming from industrial. I wouldn't say anything really coming from, from the, from the consumer. OK, uh, right, so, uh, from the government side also, let me give one example. So there is this uh uh intended use of bio biofuel in the, in the petrol and diesel in India. That percentage started with 5%. It's currently at 15%, and this year's target is 20%. Now that standard was written on government request and around the standard now there are so many different equipment that handle that biofuel, those standards are now getting written. So that's, so again, uh demand comes from the government because of a requirement and standards get built on the compliance side and uh on the uh uh uh weaker capacity. So yes, compliance on any technical regulation anywhere in the world. Is, is weak. Let me be very, very honest with you. Uh, I mean, I can, sure, I don't know whether I should give that, but even C marks came in Europe, there was a survey done, the compliance level was fairly low. And the same thing happens in India. So it's not a function of the state because if you look at a northeastern state, the, the, the intensity of industry itself is quite low. So therefore the need for the quality infrastructure also accordingly will be lower. And then what they do for the northeastern state, they were actually a consolidation. They were all taken together in a bunch, so you did not need to have a controller in each state. So one in Assam will take care of all the 78 states, and that's how they were doing that. So yes, uh, capacity, uh, can be be and so they strengthening also I think you asked a particular question whether it was a boiler and for this, so there has been a move now of private certification, at least in the boiler, the National Productivity Council has been charged with actually conducting professional examinations and certifying individuals who are chartered engineers, and they are now being used for conducting the boiler inspection. Earlier it was being done by the officials themselves. So to that extent, rent seeking, uh, will reduce, has reduced, but certainly not eradicated, not eliminated on the road safety, uh, yes, uh, there are, there are issues, and the accidents happen mostly in the cities, not as much on the highways. Highways are better organized in the city, uh, so there is, let me, uh, also inform I think the viewers, there is a body in India which is dedicated to riding standards on the road safety. It's called the Indian Roads Congress. It is, it predates the BIS. They have written a lot of standards on road safety. They're all good standards. They match the international standards. Compliance is horribly low. So the agencies involved in developing the roads don't adhere to those standards, and they're not real mechanisms. There is very little accountability on, on the roads. Uh, the second is the driving, so accidents happen because of driving behavior. So driving behavior again, you asked the right question. Driver certification. Yes, driver's certification, we have the, I mean, the protocols are absolutely fine, nothing wrong with them. The actual process of certification is again quite weak and then the behavior and the and the control, actual control on the road of behavior is also quite low now with technology actually coming up, so they are installing a lot of uh you know surveillance equipment and they're actually able to to catch and I have received for example before my own car, uh you know uh. Uh, fines for actually overstepping, let's say sometimes, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, a red light, uh, the thing. So, uh, so that is starting to happen. Hopefully that will take care. Highways have are becoming much, much more, much, much better. So hopefully properly barricaded. Hopefully accidents on the highways will, will go down. Uh, on medical labs, yes, uh, the figure that I showed to you, Devesh, was voluntary accreditation. That's not mandatory. So there are other mechanisms available for the medical labs, something which there is something called a clinical stablishment Act, which is again adopted statewide, and the states are implementing those. So there is a minimal regulatory framework and standards for the medical labs, but if they go for the uh for the NABL, that places them at a very high pedestal. So it's taken more for their marketing promotion or for, you know, for for competition purposes. Rather than for compliance. So that's answering that question. Yeah, I think I've answered all questions, yeah, yeah, thanks. Thank you so much. A problem. I would have not thought they were able to like answer all of the best uh questions, uh, especially so quickly. Thanks for that. Uh, Siddharth, over to you. Yeah, thanks, Anupam. I've actually, I mean, you have answered sort of the, the question, uh, uh, which I'm going to ask, but I think, I think maybe ask a little more specifically. So in 2021, 20202022, there was this Gambia case where the cough syrup from India led to the death of about 67 children in Ghana, and then there were issues with, it was an industry called Maiden Pharmaceuticals from Haryana which was making that cough syrup now. I was just reading here and there, and they were talking about that, OK, the issue from India's side was the compliance. There was no quality testing when, uh, when the medicines went. And then from Gambia's side was that they don't have enough sort of labs to test. In fact, they sent to Senegal or to Europe to test those cases. Uh, and then again, it's not from a peer reviewed paper or somewhere, just general reading. I don't know if it is right or wrong. There was a case where they were saying that, uh. Uh, in India, India is not at fault because, uh, this is for export and it is the importer who has to test it. India, India for domestic, for domestic, they have a different kind of testing, more, more stringent maybe testing. So is that true first and, and I wouldn't be able to actually comment on the very last. Point that you made about export, whether there is a regulation in India, because for many other products there is actually a requirement for even control of products for exports. Pharma, I'm not 100% sure, but let me try and give you some uh answer to this, although it's not my area of work. Uh, see, the, the product that, uh, cough syrups that actually cause those deaths, they have to, I mean, any medical, uh, uh, drug has 22 kinds of, I mean, uh, ingredients. One is the active ingredient, which is the actual drug, and the other are called the XCPNs, you know, which actually go on to either process the drug or actually they are the matrix or, you know, they added constituent. They're not drugs, they're the exCPNs. So in India, the active pharma ingredients, they are under very strict regimen. And the regulator, uh, you know, the CDSCO, which we have here again federated, so there are bodies in every state, so the regular inspections of the companies take place for CPNs. Actually we have a pharmacopeia in India which prescribe the the standards of what is to be used, but the enforcement or the regulation is not very, uh very, very stringent. So, uh, this incident happened, I think it was the ethanol, uh, in the, in the cough syrup. Uh, which caused the, yeah, glycol, exactly, exactly, it's lying glycol, precisely. That was the CCPent actually. It was not the active, uh, that had actually caused post this incident, post the incident, there have been, of course, a flurry of, uh, you know, inspections and controls and suspensions and a lot of things and also the, the technical committee at the CA CDSCO, they met. And they have taken a view that some of the important excipients would be placed under the, you know, like Schedule M as they call it here in India, which should be treated at par with the active ingredient. So I think that's what's probably going to happen because it could have happened in India as well, you know, so because exCPN are actually quite outside the stringent control that is applied to the active, active ingredients. So that's, I think that's my knowledge. I said that I, I wouldn't be able to go beyond this because it's really not my subject, but, uh, yeah, so yeah. Thanks. I see we're already at the end of the time, but, um, Charlie has his hand up, so I'll hand over to the boss. Uh, no, no, uh, so, uh, so Anupam, you, you, um, So, you talk about, um, um, you know, uh, standards that are, you know, complying with the international standards. They're quite, they're quite stringent and at the same time, you talk about, uh, the enforcement of standards and compliance of standards, which is a bit lagging behind. I mean, so, there's, there's partial enforcement or partial compliance. And so, so, the question here is, You know, why not, and it is actually goes at the heart of one of the potential recommendations for the report, which is, why not then, uh, sort of, you know, lower standards or, you know, uh, sort of, you know, you know, lower the stringency of standards to the point where compliance can be, can be, can be done perfectly and then sort of ratchet, you know, increase steadily the stringency. As you build capacity, as you build enforcement, And as the, the industrial base can, can actually comply with, with, with set standards. So, so, you know, so there, there seems to be, again, there seems to be a, a, a gap between the jure and de facto standards. And so, what can be done, uh, or should, should anything be done to, to sort of, again, bring, bring standards down to a level where compliance can be, can be, can be 100%. And then, you know, once, once we then, then, then, you know, increase up the, the, the, you know, the, the, the stringency standards or, you know, does, does, does that resonate and if, and if, if so, what, you know, why, why is this not happening. Yeah, but, uh, Shavi, that won't really happen because by, by definition, uh, requirement standard when it is written by a national body or international body, it is called a minimum standard always it is, it is highly compromised that at least this must be met now and the standard is built by consensus that means there is a committee of about 40 or 50 experts coming from different, different, uh, stakeholders. And they write the standard. It's never written by an authority. That is, it's, it's, it's a to standard. Uh, what really happens is that the MSME's participation in the standards writing process is less. Their representation is less. They're not able to articulate and even compliance in a developing country by MSMEs is very challenging because MSMEs are always hard pressed for cash. Let me, that, that's, it's a known fact everywhere, at at least in the developing countries. So they have to cut, they need to cut corners, and that's what really happens. And therefore, uh, you know, in the market when you see a product, uh, it could be, therefore it is, it is compromised when we have these, so compliances come in two ways. One is, of course the voluntary certification. In voluntary, you'll find the degree of compliance is fairly high, yeah, actually, because, you know, there would still be so maybe 90%, 95%, even higher. It becomes mandatory and there is a phase of mandating as well. It takes time for the industry to actually come up to that level, everyone together. So that's the time when actually enforcement, everything is also not very strong and people are not yet geared up to meet, uh, you know, standards. So by everyone, are you, are you advocating a tier approach where, where maybe, you know, beyond. It has been tried. tiered approach has been tried. I think South Africa probably tried it. We also put sometimes grades in the standards like, uh, I remember in the steel standards there would always be a grade called an ordinary grade and a standard grade, and you need to then, but then when, whenever you have a grade in standards. Very important is then that the labeling should be very accurate. A consumer must know that he's actually buying an inferior grade and there is a compromise involved. This is what he should expect. That's quite challenging. It's not easy actually because. Manufacturers don't like to do that, to declare it so openly consumers don't comprehend, don't understand, so this is not a very, very good, uh, you know, approach to actually have this differing grades and a lower grade. It is best to give time to industry to upgrade. That's what I have always been advocating and probably that we should also be putting in the report if you want to implement uh any mandatory regime of standards, you have to give time to the industry. You can't just do it in 1 year's time or 2 years' time, it could even take as long as 5 years. So it, do that in a graduated manner, you know, do that, you know, so maybe like in India, one approach has been recently tried, when they put up a new quality control order, they say, for the large industry, we give you 12 months' time, for the uh SMEs. Uh, it is 6, 18 months, and microindustry, it is 24 months, so there is a graduation. It's still not enough. They will still need more time, but there is an approach at least available for the, for the enforcement and the implementation. I see. Right. That's, that was, uh, yeah, really central point for us. I'm glad you asked that, Chami, um, and, and thanks for the response. And, um, uh, so I'd like so many questions, but I'm also aware that we are um already 7 minutes um beyond the time. So we'd like to thank you again, Anup Pang, uh, for this really rich, uh, presentation, um, and also the, the background paper. Um, I think like for any other questions, we might just like stay in touch, but otherwise we'll officially uh close the seminar. Also thank everyone for joining. Um, the slides are also gonna be made available on the WDR website, um, and the recording as well, so everyone can, um, yeah, check there as well. Right. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you, Philip. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye Devesh. Bye Shavi. bye everyone. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye.

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