ISI stands for Indian Standards Institute which is a body located in India when it gained independence to create standards that are required for orderly maintaining quality and commercial growth in industrial production. We all have once heard about the products proudly showing off their ISI mark.

By the mid-80s, the socioeconomic climate of the country changed, triggering the requirement to set up a body that will be a stronger one, which the Bureau of Indian Standards also known as (BIS) then took over ISI. But the term “ISI mark” continues to mean that some product conforms to the standards of quality set by the government. ISI, also known as BIS, is authorized by the legislation of 1986 that offers certification of the product. This program certification is basically voluntary. Any manufacturer who is confident enough that his product will meet BIS or ISI standards can apply for product certification.

HOW TO APPLY FOR PRODUCT CERTIFICATION BY ISI?

•  Submitting an application at the BIS office that is nearest to your house. A BIS officer then evaluates the manufacturer’s capacity for the production of goods according to the standards put down for the category at the factory level. Samples are tested outside and inside of the factory. If the test is passed by the product and the evaluation is satisfactory, a license is granted to the manufacturer that he can use as the desired ISI mark.
• The second way is that the test reports are provided by the manufacturer to BIS after the product is tested in the lab of the bureau and gets the certified documents independently that is necessary. BIS checks the report’s accuracy within a month and the usage of the ISI mark grants a license. While certification of a product is voluntary otherwise, there is an item’s list that for reasons of public safety, health, or consumption’s mass nature are certified mandatorily by BIS. These include infant food, cylinders, and gas valves. Such product manufacturers can not apply for the mark of ISI under a voluntary scheme.

STANDARD FOR ALL PRODUCTS

There are mainly 16 broad categories including electronics, plastic products, automobile components, food, packaged water, and textiles for which BIS or ISI has laid down standards. If someone wants to add a new category to the list that is current, they can apply for it anytime. There are 19,000 formulated standards for the products across the 16 categories.

It covers many areas with such careful detail that there should not be any products that are substandard. For example, for four-wheeler windshield wipers, there is a standard, for silver foil quality used in soil, for concrete slabs that are precast used in pavements, and even for fasteners and hooks. There is a standard for every product coming into the market.

HOW STANDARDS ARE FORMULATED

There is a body known as the Certification Advisory Committee, involved with people from different sectors such as industry associations, government agencies, consumers, and manufacturers that exists under BIS to advise on the formulation and policies of standards on various products. To make sure that interests of the consumer are represented beneficially in these committees, NGOs are invited by BIS or experts of their interest to participate in the committees.

BIS or ISI has to check the conformity to standards by surveillance that is on the regular basis of the performance of the license including testing of samples and surprise inspection, drawn both from the market and the factory. While studying about the ISI mark, it became obvious that all the things in the government, the policies and the structure to ensure safety and quality to consumers are well formulated in well-intentioned and painstaking detail.

Logically, to protect consumers with such strict standards, our markets must get a feel of those like western countries, where you can pick and ponder about a product’s suitability for you and not worry about quality and safety.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE PRODUCTS

The majority of the complaints are about those products that are non-ISI. There are only about 30,000 manufacturers with granted licenses to use ISI mark across industries, obviously, there are a number of manufacturers operating at sub-par standards. Therefore, BIS can go for a scheme that is voluntary for all products, and make it mandatory for all products to conform to the standards that are of basic quality.

If there is a complaint about an ISI product, it would basically mean slip-on standards by the manufacturer once they get the certification of ISI and BIS was not watchful enough while catching on. There are some unethical producers in this world who use ISI marks to cheat customers without applying for the license in BIS.

This point is well acknowledged by the Bureau of Indian Standards, which then administrational raids on such manufacturers, and the number of those fraud manufacturers are increasing every year. For now, it is even suggested by the government that consumers should always look for the ISI mark before buying products. The license’s granting to use is quite strict as you can see.

Keeping faith in the process is an important part that it is as good as a guarantee of safety and quality as one can get today. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to check the Indian standards for the mineral water bottle or the skimmed milk you purchased, you can buy a copy of the standard bureau for all those products that you can get online.

ISI CONSULTANCY SERVICES

In today’s era, customers are conscious while buying and after the purchase of the product. Business services keep administrative headaches of the clients to a minimum by spending more time on their business and leading it to the path of success.

ISI consultancy services help other companies with evaluating all the elements that are necessary and strategic decisions’ proper training is required for minimizing the risk of decision risk. This approach of using technology and insights for formulating vision into output results in a very successful business.