Govt working on standards to check sub-standard goods' imports.

NEW DELHI: The government is working out mandatory standards for imported goods, such as chemical and engineering, with a view to check inward shipments of sub-standard items from various countries, including China.

The Commerce Ministry has been tasked to coordinate with all the departments on the matter.

"We have asked all ministries and departments to come out with standards so that we can only permit import of high quality products. Those standards will be uniform and not directed towards a particular country," Commerce Secretary S R Rao told PTI.

Rao said that two ministries - food and electronics have already moving ahead on the issue.

"We are looking at other ministries to come out with the mandatory standards for products like chemicals, pharmaceuticals and engineering," he added.

The Secretary said that all the concerned officials are regularly meeting on the matter.

"We keep on doing quarterly meetings to follow up these things. As a result, two ministries are already moving ahead," Rao said.

An expert said that sub-standard products are coming in India because of policy lacuna.

"Unfortunately, we have these norms for only few 100 products. Because of policy lacuna sub-standard goods are coming into India mainly from China. These items are not good for health and safety of consumers," former Director of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) K T Chaco said.

Chaco said that as per the international laws, domestic manufacturers also have to conform to those norms.

He added that mandatory rules would help in containing imports as high import bill is putting huge pressure on India's current account deficit.

The government had earlier come out with mandatory standard norms for imports of products like toys and mobile phones. In 2009, India had banned imports of toys from China on grounds of public health and safety but later lifted it and fixed international safety norms for imports.

In June 2009, the government had also banned import of mobile phones that lack the unique IMEI number, which helps authorities track users. These phones were mostly coming from China.

More than a dozen countries in Asia, including India and Africa, have banned milk and dairy product imports from China due to melamine content, the dangerous chemical that can cause kidney stones as well as failure of the organ.

Sub-standard products like from chemical industry have negative effects on the environment. Destruction of such items can be a costly process that creates considerable waste.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com