NEW DELHI
Nearly 80 prime institutions including all IITs and NITs except IIT Delhi have signed an MOU with BIS for “BIS Standardization Chair Professor” at these institutes, and the country has around 8,000 standards clubs, said Pramod Kumar Tiwari, IAS, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards at the 15th summit of GRIHA Council.
Adding further Tiwari said, “This is an initiative towards institutionalising its engagement with the premier institutes of the country for securing active participation of academia in stand formulation and making teaching of Indian standards an integral part of the curriculum and the purpose is to create awareness”.
BIS is the National Standard Body of India established under the BIS Act 2016 for the harmonious development of the activities of standardization, marking, and quality certification of goods and matters connected.
There are 22,000 standards decided by stakeholders and experts for manufacture and construction but only 1,200 are being followed and the major reason behind this lag is unawareness. Towards this mandate, BIS started with the concept of creating a Standards Club in schools and colleges, wherein the concepts of standardization and quality are introduced to the students at an early age and signing MOUs with engineering institutes and other institutes like agriculture to introduce Indian standards as a part of the curriculum.
BIS in its first year of 2021-22 established 1,037 Standards Clubs across India and upon realizing the potential and success of the novel endeavour, the target is ambitiously enhanced to creating 10,000 clubs by the end of 2022-23 and today we have 8,000 clubs. Speaking at the event, he said, “Previously our focus was safety but now sustainability is our major concern because now can’t survive without being sustainable”.