Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and IT, encouraged investment for setting up additional testing lab infrastructure for safety testing of electronic devices in the country under the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012. He talked about both FDI and domestic investment. Sibal was reviewing the implementation of the mandatory safety standards regime of the Department with various stakeholders. The fact that the existing capacity for testing electronic devices was inadequate to meet the demands was recognised during the meeting, which is why the minister proposed setting up of additional labs.
The meeting was attended by leaders of the industry associations and various ministries involved in the implementation of the new compulsory regime for standards, including Commerce, Customs, BIS, Planning Commission and Telecom, amongst other.
Labs Recognised
BIS has identified some labs under under “Electronics and Information Technology Goods (requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012”. The labs include Intertek India Pvt. Ltd. testing facility at New Delhi and that of Conformity Testing Labs Pvt. Ltd. at New Delhi. “Electronics and Information Technology Goods (requirements for Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012” has come into effect from 3 April 2013. Intertek’s facility has been recognised for testing IS 616: 2010 and IS 13252(Part 1): 2010, while that of Conformity Testing Labs Private Limited has been recognized for IS 13252(Pt-1):2010 and IS 302-2-26:1994. With these certifications, the testing labs which have been recognized are as follows: