NEW DELHI: A Working Group of the Planning Commission has recommended the formation of a National Regulatory Authority for Standards and Conformity Assessment and a National Standards System, revealed  Anwarul Hoda, Member Planning Commission, while speaking at a seminar on "Competing in the Race for Global Markets", organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, in New Delhi Wednesday.

The government has identified various sectors for regulation and this Regulator would ensure that good regulatory practices are followed by India, he added. A National Conformity Assessment Policy requiring all Conformity Assessment Boards (CABs) to adopt applicable international standards may also be on the anvil, informed Mr. Hoda.

Mentioning that the Working Group had worked out a fund requirement for promotion of standards and conformity assessment in India, Mr. Hoda also called upon the private sector to partner with the government through Private Public Partnerships in this area. Talking about the role of standards as non-tariff barriers, he urged CII and American National Standards Institute to collaborate towards harmonizing standards and called upon ANSI to provide help in capacity building in India towards this end.

Joe Bhatia, President and CEO American National Standards Institute, while speaking at the Seminar said there were many areas for collaboration between CII and ANSI. Specifically listing out some areas, he said, "I see three specific areas for collaboration. The most important amongst these is the appointment of an executive jointly by CII and ANSI for Standards and Conformity Assessments, who could be a focus point of all technical regulatory information on Standards in India".  Mr. Bhatia, further committed to providing training and other resources to enable such an executive to be an effective liaison person.

"The other areas of collaboration include partnering in building the next phase of the Standards portal, which would provide information on Indian standards and trade information to visitors," said the ANSI President.

Mr. Carmine D'Aloisio, Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs, Embassy of the United States of America, also present at the Seminar, said, "The US Government is committed to working on Standards with other governments. We know that standards can work as non-tariff barriers if not dealt with correctly and they affect SMEs most disproportionately."

D'Aloisio highlighted the need to make policy choices to facilitate competitiveness and called upon ANSI and CII to work together to solve these issues. The US Minister Counselor also said that there was good co-operation between US and India in certain areas of standards, such as medical devices, which had been made possible with CII's support. Emphasizing the US government's commitment to work with the Indian Government in the area of Standards and Conformity Assessment, he said, "we will be more active with policy dialogs and in this context the Secretary of Commerce, US will visit India in not too distant a future".
 
Giridhar Gyani, Secretary General, QCI, said that standards play an important role not only in products and services, but in the current scenario they could be implemented for the governance of countries too. He also urged the industry to take self-standardization seriously.  

Ramani Iyer, Convener, CII Sub Committee on Standard, said that CII's mission was to make India competitive and to this end committed that CII would do a joint portal with ANSI and the Ministry of Commerce to provide access to Indian standards". Making a call for action to the industry, Mr. Iyer further committed that CII would sign an MoU with ANSI to work towards making standards a wheel of progress in India.

Deep Kapuria, Deputy Chairman, CII Northern Region, while emphasizing the importance that standards play in global trade said that Standards are a tool to handle sub standard products. We need to have standard to see that sub standard products from various countries conform to some basic standards. Mr. Kapuria also highlighted the importance of harmonizing standards across countries.

Responding to the call for action by Mr. Ramani Iyer, Joe Bhatia said, "I would like to identify at least 5-6 key areas where we can have industry to industry liaison". ANSI, he said would be glad to assist and initiate dialog in key sectors where the US companies are eager to talk to Indian industry.