The Parliamentary Consultative Committee meeting of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution chaired by Shri Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution was held today at Parliament Annex in presence of the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, C.R Chaudhary, distinguished MPs and concerned officials from the Ministry Shri Ram Vilas Paswan reviewed the activities of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and laid emphasis on easy redressal mechanism of complaints, mandatory certification, enhancing consumer confidence through publicity and various other interactive measures. Shri Paswan also stressed on the effective implementation of the provisions of new BIS Act 2016.The Members of the Committee discussed issues related to improvement in core activities of the BIS, such as Standards formulation, Certification, Hallmarking, Laboratory Testing, Consumer Affairs and International Cooperation etc.Earlier, the Director General, BIS made a presentation to the Consultative Committee on Consumer Affairs regarding a broad overview of BIS activities and new thrust areas identified by BIS.
BIS through its core activities of standardization and conformity assessment, has been benefiting the national economy by providing safe, reliable and quality goods; minimizing health hazards to consumers; protecting the environment, promoting exports and imports substitute; controlling over proliferation of varieties etc. The standards and certification scheme of BIS apart from benefitting the consumers and industry also supports various public policies especially in areas of product safety, consumer protection, food safety, environment protection, building and construction, etc.In recent years, BIS has worked towards specifically addressing various national priorities and other government initiatives like Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, Make in India and ease of doing business through its activities of standardization and certification. In standards development, BIS continues to address issues of technology changes and advancements, climate change, environment and energy conservation, conditions of health and safety and facilitation of trade. In the area of conformity assessment BIS is working towards making the processes simpler and faster.The meeting was attended by Shri Ram Prasad Sarmah (MP, Lok Sabha), Ramesh Chander Kaushik (MP, Lok Sabha) and Shri Balwinder Singh Bhunder (MP, Rajya Sabha).