You can’t ignore this message India, if you hope to live a good life!

The world celebrates October 14, every year as the World Standards Day. Only a week before, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement was signed between the Pacific Rim countries, representing 40 % of global trade on goods and services. There is a message here for us in India. As a fast growing major economy and as a signatory to multiple FTAs and other similar platforms, India must take special interest in leveraging the potential of Standards in positively impacting India’s economy and society.

Standards help build the ‘Trust of the Customer’ on the one hand by clearly stating what she can expect when buying a product or a service. They also act as the ‘technical language’ between the industry, the consumer, the legal systems in the country, product innovation, technology assimilation, trade policy and others. The increasing emphasis on consumer protection and the legal systems is an important environmental factor here.

Thus, there can be no doubt that the ‘maturity of Standards’ for products and services sold in a country is a true reflection of the economic competitiveness and maturity of its economy. In the formative stages of an economy, it is the government that has to take the first steps to establish a framework for standardization of products and services, especially the developing countries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in the 17 months since taking charge, has announced a series of plans to unleash the economic vibrancy of our country, the major ones being – Make in India, Digital India, Smart Cities and Zero Defect, Zero Effect. While the economic frame work to enable such initiatives is a vital must, we must focus on Standards Development and Compliance as a pivotal enabler and facilitator. The importance that the developed economies give to the development and international adoption of Standards underlines the significance of Standards for today’s globalized economy. How much attention are we as a nation paying to this technical workhorse.

China is referred to, today as the ‘factory to the world’. We have read at length about the infrastructure available as well as the support provided by the Chinese authorities to make manufacturing competitive in that country. But not many may know that China has more than 100,000 standards for products and services sold in the country that are national in nature or local / industry specific in some cases. In India, this number is a fraction of the above. We have believed for a very long time, and wrongly so, that raising the standards for products being sold in India will hurt the Indian manufacturing, especially the small and medium sector. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

The absence of a standardization process for a product or service sold in a country, not only harms the interests of the consumer but also hurts the economy. The local manufacturers are tempted to benefit from and enjoy a short lived period of suboptimal regulation, only to be swamped by products of much better quality imported from another country. This only makes the manufacturer weak. A visit to any of our malls reveals that gadgets and goods on display are mostly imported with only the brand name sounding Indian. At the same time, we also know that in areas where India adopted international standards and requirements quickly, the industry has been a winner. The best examples of success are Pharmaceuticals and the IT Sector where client demand and international markets have ensured that we stay competitive.

What we need hence is a India Standards Vision 2020 that aims to harmoniously blend the International Product and Process Standards with the India requirements as well as economic policies with the aim of protecting the Indian consumer and parallel enhancing the competitiveness of the Indian Manufacturing and service sector. The government has started acting in a concerted manner in recent months with DIPP, Commerce Ministry and the MoCA taking the lead. It is also necessary that the Industry Associations and Bodies work with their member organizations and look at development implementation of Standards voluntarily as a competitive advantage and a necessity, than a regulatory burden. To address the requirements of the MSME sector in the transition process, there need to be programs that help the members assimilate technologies as well as get support for developing products that are tested and certified to national / international standards of quality, performance and safety.

Standards play such a vital role in protecting the consumer and in making ‘Make in India’ a success that it can be said – Yatha Standards Thatha Product and Yatha Product, Thatha Economy.
(The article is authored by R.A.Venkitachalam, Vice President-Public Safety, Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Venki focuses on advancing the cause of Public Safety and UL’s mission across large parts of the Developing World.)

Image credits: open-stand