The limited funds and resources invested in research and development activities in India exert a negative impact on various spheres including standardisation.
The Indian Institute of Petroleum director Dr MO Garg said this while speaking as the chief guest at a function organised by the Bureau of Indian Standards, Dehradun to mark World Standards Day on Monday. The theme of the function was ‘International Standards Ensure Positive Change’.
Addressing a gathering, Garg said that there is a tendency in India to adopt standards developed in foreign nations instead of developing and encouraging the implementation of indigenous standards. “Many industries reject changes as this would require them to make substantial investments,” he said.
Regarding the importance of standardisation, he narrated, “Recently at IIP, we were working on biolubricant formulations for which we used tap water in the experiment as the scientists said that it was similar to bottled water. later we achieved desired results using branded bottled water which was good as this product is standardised and its quality in different parts of India is expected to be constant. Thus we can tell our clients to use this bottled water for the biolubricant formulation.”
Referring to the standardisation scenario in India, he said, “Standardisation is the new international language. However, the international community is much more aggressive in standardisation compared to India where we need to invest in data generation and develop our own standards in stead of simply adopting foreign standards,” added Garg. He also said that positive change is not only in terms of economic concern but has environmental and social aspects too.
Earlier, BIS Dehradun branch office director and head Dileep Kumar informed that the aim of the World Standards Day was to raise awareness among regulators, industry, consumers and society as to the importance of standardisation in the global economy.
He spoke of the standardisation work carried out by the BIS in various fields including product and service sectors and various certification schemes being operated by the bureau.
The growth in number of licenses in various sectors under different schemes is in itself an indicator of the confidence of industry, consumers and public large in the standards. International standards are one way of overcoming technical barriers in international commerce caused by differences among technical regulations and standards developed independently and separately by each nation or company, he said.
BIS Dehradun joint director Sudheer Bishnoi read out the joint message of the International Electrotechnical Commission, International Organisation for Standardisation and International Telecommunication Union.