Quality control and India’s manufacturing growth

1. At a Glance

• Quality Control Orders (QCOs) are government orders that make BIS certification (Standard Mark) compulsory for notified products. After a QCO takes effect, nobody may manufacture, import, distribute, sell, hire, lease, store or exhibit for sale a covered product without the Standard Mark, except under valid BIS certification. [2]
• The tension is between consumer and safety protection and the goal of building competitive firms that plug into global value chains (GVCs). QCOs on intermediate goods raised input costs and availability concerns. [1][3]
• The government's response is a QCO reset. It includes revoking or suspending several QCOs and the Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026. The article argues this must go further. [1]

2. Why in the News

• The op-ed by Prerna Prabhakar (CSEP) and Nancy Gupta (Crawford School) was published in The Hindu BusinessLine on 24 Sept 2026. It calls for the QCO reassessment exercise to move forward. [1]
• QCOs and other non-tariff barriers drew criticism at the WTO's eighth Trade Policy Review of India (July 2026). Concerns came from the EU and the US, and also from BRICS members Brazil, China and Indonesia. [1]
• The Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 was notified by DPIIT on 25 June 2026. It eases bottlenecks for eligible firms facing difficulty in obtaining BIS Scheme-I certification. The excerpt is truncated after this point. [1]
• Business Standard editorials (June and Aug 2026) argue the new order does not solve the problem. GTRI has urged DPIIT to issue detailed guidelines and review QCOs. These are headline-level snippets only. [4]

3. Background & Evolution

• BIS Act, 2016 was brought into force on 12 October 2017. [5]
• QCOs are issued by the concerned ministries or departments in consultation with BIS under the BIS Act, 2016. They place products under mandatory certification. [2]
• Coverage expanded rapidly: 88 products (2019) to 765 (end-Dec 2024). [1]
• A PIB release reports 187 QCOs covering 769 products under compulsory certification. Most are on intermediate products across steel, chemicals and petrochemicals, mines, textiles, DPIIT and heavy industries. [3]
• The pace of expansion slowed considerably towards the end of 2025. Several QCOs, mainly on intermediate goods, were revoked or suspended over input availability, cost and supply-chain concerns. [1]
• Earlier example: the Toys QCO 2020, enforced through BIS search and seizure operations. [6]

4. Core Static Facts

• Standards body: Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), established under the BIS Act, 2016. [5]
• Enabling law: the BIS Act, 2016. QCO contraventions are punishable under Section 29(3) with imprisonment, fine or both. [2]
• Conformity assessment: BIS may notify conformity assessment schemes for goods, articles, processes, systems or services, and may establish a Standard Mark for each scheme. [7]
• Issuing authority: line ministries or departments (steel, chemicals, DPIIT and others), in consultation with BIS. [2]
• Coverage: 88 products (2019), 765 (Dec 2024). [1]
• New order: the Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026, notified by DPIIT on 25 June 2026. [1]
• Compliance cost cited: certification costs of up to Rs 15,000 per consignment. Approvals for foreign suppliers are slow. This is a Business Standard analysis snippet. [3]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Economic

• Mandatory certification on raw materials and intermediates raises input costs. It can cause supply disruptions for downstream manufacturers. [1]
• Manufacturers reliant on imported inputs cannot source components until overseas suppliers get BIS certification. [3]
• The article's premise is that India needs firms that can grow, integrate into GVCs and compete internationally. [1]

Social / MSME

• Compliance costs favour larger firms. MSMEs face disproportionate burdens from certification costs and approval delays. [3]

Geopolitical / Trade

• QCOs were treated as non-tariff barriers at the WTO TPR (July 2026), with criticism from both major partners and BRICS peers. [1]
• This complicates India's trade negotiations and its GVC ambitions.

Legal / Governance

• The statutory base is the BIS Act, 2016. Penal provisions are in Section 29(3). [2]
• Because ministries issue QCOs "as and when need arises", coverage has been ad hoc rather than centrally coordinated. [2]
• Policy shifted from expansion (2019–24) to revocation and suspension (late 2025 onward). [1]

Administrative

• Implementation depends on BIS certification capacity, including for foreign manufacturers. Approvals are slow, costly and uncertain. [3]
• Transition relief through DPIIT is a stop-gap. GTRI has asked for detailed guidelines. [4]

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• Late 2025: the pace of QCO expansion slowed. Several QCOs, especially on intermediate goods, were revoked or suspended. [1]
• 25 June 2026: DPIIT notified the Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026. [1]
• June 2026: GTRI urged DPIIT to issue detailed guidelines. A Business Standard editorial said the new order would not solve the problem. [4]
• July 2026: WTO's eighth Trade Policy Review of India. [1]
• Aug 2026: GTRI called for a review of QCOs to ease trade barriers. [4]
• 24 Sept 2026: the CSEP and Crawford School fellows publish the op-ed calling for the reset to go further. [1]

7. Prelims Hooks

• QCO products rose from 88 (2019) to 765 (Dec 2024). [1]
• The Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 was notified on 25 June 2026 by DPIIT. [1]
• The order concerns firms facing difficulty obtaining BIS Scheme-I certification. [1]
• The WTO's eighth Trade Policy Review of India was held in July 2026. [1]
• The BIS Act, 2016 came into force on 12 October 2017. [5]
• QCO violations are punishable under Section 29(3), BIS Act, 2016. [2]
• QCOs are issued by line ministries or departments in consultation with BIS. BIS does not issue them. [2]
• Products covered by a QCO must carry the Standard Mark. [2]
• 187 QCOs covering 769 products were reported under compulsory BIS certification, mostly on intermediates. [3]
• The Toys QCO dates from 2020. [6]
• BIS may notify conformity assessment schemes under the BIS Act. [7]

8. The Government's Own Committee Already Said Most QCOs Should Go

• A high-level committee inside government reached the same conclusion two years before this op-ed — so this is not just an outside complaint.
• A committee led by NITI Aayog member Rajiv Gauba recommended cancelling, suspending or deferring more than 200 QCOs [8].

• Its reason was specific: the orders raised compliance costs (the money and time a firm spends just to prove it follows a rule) and broke supply chains [8].

• Why this matters for your answer — when a reform is demanded by a government committee and still moves slowly, the problem is not "lack of awareness". It is that each QCO is owned by a different line ministry, and no ministry wants to withdraw its own order [2].

• QCOs are issued by line ministries "as and when need arises", not by one central body [2].
• So a cut list drawn up centrally has to be executed by many separate ministries, each of which can simply do nothing.

9. The June 2026 Relief Order Touches Only a Corner of the Problem

• The relief is narrow. The Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 created an alternative way to comply under only about ten QCOs — toys, personal protective equipment, air conditioners and compressors, footwear, furniture, hinges, domestic electrical appliances and household electrical safety products [4].
• India has 187 QCOs covering 769 products [3].

• So roughly ten orders get an easier path, and the rest do not.

• It also misses the goods that hurt the most. The listed ten are mostly finished consumer goods. The complaint in the article is about intermediate goods — the steel, chemicals and fibres a factory buys to make something else [1][3].

• A firm making exports still cannot get its imported input until the foreign supplier holds a BIS licence [3].

• This is why GTRI asked DPIIT for detailed guidelines — without written rules on who qualifies and how long approval takes, an "alternative pathway" is only a promise on paper [4].

10. Deadline Extensions Are Not the Same Thing as Reform

• The usual government answer to QCO pain has been to push the date, not change the rule.
• The QCO deadline for non-leather footwear MSMEs was extended to July 2027 [10].

• DPIIT relaxed the cookware QCO for micro units [9].

• Why an extension solves less than it looks.

• The standard itself, and the cost of meeting it, stay exactly the same. Only the day of reckoning moves.

• A small firm cannot plan. It does not know whether to spend on testing now or wait for the next extension, so it invests in neither [9][10].

• Carve-outs for micro units create a new problem — a firm that grows past the "micro" size suddenly faces the full certification cost. That is a reason to stay small, which is the opposite of the article's goal of firms that grow and join global value chains (GVCs) [1][9].

11. The Case FOR Keeping QCOs, and What Is Right About It

• The strongest defence comes from the government itself. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has argued that quality control orders protect MSMEs from unfair competition [11].
• The logic: if cheap, low-quality imports can enter freely, an Indian small firm that follows safety rules is undercut by one abroad that does not.

• A mandatory standard forces everyone selling in India to meet the same bar.

• Part of this is genuinely correct.

• Safety is real. BIS ran search and seizure operations under the Toys QCO 2020 against unmarked goods [6].

• Breaking a QCO is a criminal offence under Section 29(3), BIS Act, 2016 — jail, fine or both. That seriousness exists because unsafe toys and electrical goods injure people [2].

• But the defence answers a different question than the critics ask.

• The safety case is strongest for final consumer goods — a toy a child puts in the mouth, a plug in a home.
• Most Indian QCOs sit on intermediate goods instead — steel, chemicals, petrochemicals, textiles [3]. A consumer never touches these directly.
• So the protection argument is being used to defend orders it does not really fit.

12. The Test India Signed Up For at the WTO

• India is not free to set any standard it likes. Under the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) — the rulebook for product standards — a technical regulation must not restrict trade more than is necessary to meet its goal, such as safety [13].
• This is the exact sentence India's partners lean on when they call QCOs non-tariff barriers.

• It explains why the criticism at the eighth Trade Policy Review of India, held on 21 and 23 July 2026, was hard to brush off [12].

• The TBT Agreement also points to the cheaper fix. It asks members to accept each other's conformity assessment results — that is, to trust a test already done abroad instead of repeating it [13].

• Today a foreign supplier must obtain its own BIS licence, and approval is slow, costly and uncertain [3].

• The awkward part for India: at the same review, India's own policy statement said it was working to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers and link its exporters to global value chains [12]. India is asking others for what it has not given.

13. Fixes With a Named Owner

• DPIIT should publish the Gauba committee's list and act on it order by order
• A committee under NITI Aayog member Rajiv Gauba already named 200-plus QCOs for cancellation, suspension or deferment [8].

• Making the list public turns a quiet internal file into something ministries can be held to.

• Line ministries should stop putting QCOs on intermediate goods unless there is a safety reason a consumer can feel

• QCOs are issued by line ministries, so only they can withdraw them [2].

• Most current QCOs are on intermediates across steel, chemicals and textiles — inputs, not products people use [3].

• BIS should accept test reports from recognised foreign laboratories instead of re-testing

• The WTO TBT Agreement already asks members to accept one another's conformity assessment results [13].

• This directly removes the wait where an Indian factory cannot buy an input until its overseas supplier gets a BIS licence [3].

• DPIIT should turn the Transition Facilitation Order into a standing rule and extend it beyond the ten QCOs it covers

• GTRI has asked DPIIT for detailed guidelines on the new pathway [4].

• Relief tied to only about ten orders out of 187 cannot fix a problem spread across 769 products [3][4].

• Replace repeated deadline extensions with one published transition period plus testing support for MSMEs

• The footwear deadline has already been pushed to July 2027 and cookware relaxed for micro units [9][10].
• A firm can plan for a fixed date. It cannot plan for a date that keeps moving.

14. Anchors for Answers

• Data: 187 QCOs covering 769 products under compulsory BIS certification, mostly intermediate goods [3]; coverage rose from 88 products (2019) to 765 (Dec 2024) [1]
• Data: certification cost of up to Rs 15,000 per consignment, with slow approvals for foreign suppliers [3]
• Report/Committee: high-level committee under NITI Aayog member Rajiv Gauba — recommended cancelling, suspending or deferring 200-plus QCOs for raising compliance costs and disrupting supply chains [8]
• Law/Case: BIS Act, 2016 (in force 12 October 2017), Section 29(3) — imprisonment, fine or both for QCO contravention [2][5]; WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade — a technical regulation must not be more trade-restrictive than necessary, and members should accept each other's conformity assessment results [13]
• Comparison: WTO's eighth Trade Policy Review of India, 21 and 23 July 2026 — India's own statement promised to cut tariff and non-tariff barriers and link exporters to global value chains, while partners attacked QCOs as barriers [12]
• Scheme: Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 (DPIIT, 25 June 2026) — alternative compliance pathway under about ten QCOs including toys, PPE, air conditioners, footwear and furniture [1][4]; sectoral relief such as the non-leather footwear MSME deadline extension to July 2027 and the cookware QCO relaxation for micro units [9][10]

15. Mains Relevance

• GS-III: Indian Economy (industrial policy, manufacturing, MSMEs, effects of liberalisation on industry). Also Infrastructure and Investment Models.
• GS-II: International Relations (India and WTO and trade groupings).
• Plausible questions:
• "Quality Control Orders protect consumers but hurt manufacturing competitiveness." Critically examine in light of recent reforms.
• Discuss how non-tariff barriers such as QCOs affect India's integration into global value chains.
• Evaluate the impact of mandatory BIS certification on MSMEs and suggest a calibrated approach.

16. Related Topics to Study Next

• Make in India / PLI schemes: the domestic manufacturing push that QCOs interact with.
• Non-tariff barriers vs tariffs: the WTO framework for standards and TBT.
• WTO Trade Policy Review mechanism: the basis for the July 2026 scrutiny.
• Global value chains: why input access matters for exporters.
• MSME policy: compliance-cost burdens.
• BIS and standardisation: structure and hallmarking.
• India's FTAs (EU, US): standards and NTB issues in negotiations.
• Ease of doing business and regulatory reform: the deregulation agenda.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• QCOs are not issued by BIS. Line ministries or departments issue them. BIS certifies. [2]
• Do not confuse the 2026 Transition Facilitation Order (DPIIT, 25 June 2026) with the BIS Act, 2016. [1][5]
• Numbers vary by source and date. The article says 765 products (Dec 2024). PIB reports 769 products under 187 QCOs. Check the date and source. [1][3]
• The QCO reset is selective. It targeted mainly intermediate goods, not all QCOs. [1]
• BIS Act, 2016 is not the same as the earlier BIS Act, 1986. It came into force on 12 Oct 2017. [5]