Govt yet to approve BIS certificates to Chinese toy companies

The government has not yet issued a mandatory quality certificate to around 160 Chinese companies for selling toys in India due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From January 2021, India has made it mandatory to get the quality certification mark of ‘ISI’ from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for the sale of toys in the country.

Generally, the BIS quality certification is issued after an inspection of the factories but due to the pandemic restrictions and health concerns, the BIS officials could not visit China. BIS Director General Pramod Kumar Tiwari said, “Neither they invited us for inspection nor we could visit China because of the pandemic.” The director also clarified that there is no ban as such on the import of Chinese toys but they should comply with the mandatory Indian quality standards.

Consumers can complain if they find illegal ‘made in China’ toys sold in the country. The BIS Director said, “We are conducting raids at toy stores located at major airports and malls in the country. We have found imported toys without a BIS quality market are being sold. At some places, fake BIS licenses have been used for selling toys.”

The BIS has granted the quality certificate to 29 foreign toy makers in the last two years, out of which 14 are from Vietnam. The BIS has also issued the quality certificate to 982 Indian toy makers in the same period. It has been conducting enforcement raids in the last few days at major airports and malls across the country for violation of toy quality control orders and it plans to conduct raids for an entire month.