Accelerating the efforts to boost quality infrastructure in the country, the Government of India initiated a scheme thorough the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the National Standards Body of India, for upgradation and strengthening of the laboratory network in the country. With proposals over ₹340 crore screened, the move is anticipated to give a significant boost to the quality infrastructure of India by enhancing testing facilities across critical sectors including Textiles, Food, Legal Metrology, and Power Transmission.

In the overall quality infrastructure of the country, availability of testing facilities plays a pivotal role by ensuring that manufactures, regulators and consumers are able to meet their technical requirements and ensure the availability of quality products in the country. The government has taken a series of steps to enhance the availability of testing facilities and laboratory infrastructure across various sectors. The Department of Consumer Affairs under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution through its screening committee has screened in proposals worth over ₹340 Crore for support to be provided by BIS in creating testing facilities in Government Laboratories across sectors such as Textiles, Food, Legal Metrology and Power Transmission and Distribution which will serve as catalyst in driving growth in these areas.

The Centre has now also extended the scheme towards supporting other laboratories for creation/augmentation of test facilities in critical areas to the laboratories of institutions of higher education and private organisations running laboratories for R&D purposes or not for profit basis. Such laboratories can also apply for support as per the provisions of the scheme which is available on BIS website in laboratories tab at www.bis.gov.in.

The manufacturers having in-house testing facilities can also associate their laboratories with BIS testing ecosystem for the purpose of testing of samples for BIS conformity assessment schemes by getting their laboratory recognized under BIS Laboratory Recognition Scheme (BIS LRS). The application has to be made online through BIS laboratory Information Management System at https://lims.bis.gov.in/  by going to Login and then New Lab Register link. The portal also contains a detailed user manual for step by step process of registration.

In case of any clarification/help required regarding the above schemes, BIS may be contacted at lrmd-bis@bis.gov.in or at BIS facilitation number 1800-11-1206

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