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The Government on Monday has extended the deadline for electronic manufacturing companies to submit their products for certification by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to January 3, 2014.
This would allow the companies to sell their products in the market, even though they have not got the BIS certification, but have applied for it.
“Registration letter (of application) issued by BIS shall suffice for the purpose of clearance of such consignments by Customs/ Excise till January 3, 2014. However, the needed markings shall be placed by the manufacturer/ local representatives of the manufacturing units before placing such goods into markets,” the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) said in a statement on its Web site.
However, the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) and many companies wanted at least six months of another extension because the BIS was not able to handle the volume of products for testing.
It is been almost a year that the Government had come out with such mandatory safety requirements tags on the products, but lack of adequate number of BIS recognised labs in the country has delayed the entire process.
The earlier deadline was set for October 3. Till now, around 200 registrations have been issued out of 325 applications (each application carrying request for three-four products to be certified).
“Six months would have been realistic because ideally the labs are taking time,” Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT, told Business Line .
However, he also said the three months extension gives a breather as otherwise electronic firms would not have been able to import products during the festive season.
According to an earlier order, electronic companies were supposed to get 15 listed electronic and information technology goods such as videogames, microwave ovens, laptops, tablet computers and LCD television, registered with BIS.
In addition to these 15 products notified, the Government last month has also added new products such as projectors and servers to be BIS certified before coming to markets.
>ronendrasingh.s@thenhindu.co.in
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