New Delhi, Tuesday, September 13, 2022: Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, in association with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), organized an awareness webinar on new QCOs & Standards for the Textile Value Chain on 12th September 2022, through virtual mode. Shri Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Director General, (Standardization), Shri J K Gupta, Head-Textiles, Shri Aditya Das, Scientist D, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Shri Ajit B Chavan, Secretary, Textiles Committee, Dr. Arindam Basu, Director General, Northern India Textiles Research Association (NITRA), Shri Durai Palanisamy, Managing Director, Pallava Group and Dr. P.P. Raichurkar, Director, Man Made Textile Research Association (MANTRA) were the esteemed Speakers for the event.

In his address CITI Chairman, Shri T Rajkumar, highlighted that in a bid to strengthen Standards for the textile industry, the BIS is in the  process of formulating  Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for certain products which have a significant bearing on the consumers’ health & safety. These will also help in checking cheap imports that can endanger consumer health.  BIS is also in the process of framing the next version of the Standards National Action Plan (SNAP) 2022-27 and the industry is looking forward to these developments to strengthen the quality benchmark of the industry , without any barriers to trade, specially with regard to access and availability of inputs that are import dependent.

Shri Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Director General, (Standardization) in his inaugural address briefed the industry about the various certification processes of the BIS and other parameters necessary for the industry to follow and benefit from the simplified processes.

Shri J K Gupta, Head-Textiles (BIS) further made a detailed presentation on the Standards and QCO’s prepared for the entire textile value chain including Technical Textiles. He briefed about the various Product Committees involved in the certification processes at BIS and urged the industry stakeholders to increase their participation in the process of formulation of new Standards and QCO’s for its holistic growth.

Shri Aditya Das, Scientist D, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) made a detailed presentation on Status of Quality Control Orders on Textiles Products and Conformity Assessment Scheme of BIS.

Shri Ajit B Chavan, Secretary, Textiles Committee highlighted the overall ecosystem of Standards and difference in compliance requirements with that the QCO’s would entail. He stated that Standards and QCO’s have become crucial for the industry as imports have risen manifolds in the last few years and therefore it becomes necessary to place such Standards and QCOs for India’s T&A Sector.

Dr. Arindam Basu Director General, NITRA & Shri Durai Palanisamy, Managing Director, Pallava Group raised the concerns of the industry on the applicability of Standards on the final product or the raw materials and the time and cost involved in the getting such certification processes.

Dr. R.R. Raichurkar, Director, MANTRA stated that BIS is doing very good job by developing Standards and QCOs for the textile industry and offered the support not only to the textile industry but also to the BIS to use their technical textile facility which has been developed by them in Surat which is the foremost technical textile testing centre in the country.

The industry stakeholders asked various questions on the different aspects of the Standardisations and QCOs and requested for more time for implementation of the QCOs, given the time needed to align to the new requirements.

Shri J K Gupta while summing up the webinar thanked CITI for taking initiative for organising such an informative webinar on the new QCOs and Standards and urged CITI to have more frequent sessions like these in order to understand the industry issues for better formulation of the new QCOs and Standards.