Govt. unveils Quality Control Orders for technical textiles

Subject: Economy

Section : External sector

Concept:

The Ministry of Textiles has announced two Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for 31 technical textile items which include 19 geo textile and 12 protective textile products.
The latest QCO is the first-ever technical regulation for technical textile products in the country.
In the next phase, the Ministry of Textiles is looking to issue two more QCOs for 28 items that aim to cover 22 agro textile products and six medical textile items.
Recently Quality Control Orders (QCO) were introduced for fibres such as cotton, polyester and viscose which are the basic raw materials in the Indian textile industry.

Quality Control Orders (QCOs)

For ensuring the availability of quality products to consumers, Quality Control Orders (QCOs) are issued by various Ministries/Departments of the Government of India in the exercise of the powers conferred by section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016 stipulating conformity of the products to Indian Standards.
The main aim of the QCO is to control the import of sub-quality and cheaper items and to ensure that customers get quality products.
QCOs can only be challenged at WTO if they are imposed on grounds of health, safety, environment and deceptive trade practice, or national security.
BIS certifies it for International and domestic products.

India’s stand:

All orders are in line with WTO norms
India has the right to impose QCOs since they are first applied in the domestic market and then on imports.
India’s rationale behind issuing QCOs is to curb the dumping of cheap products from China and to address the widening trade deficit, which is nearly 40% of the total deficit.

Technical Textiles

Technical textiles are functional fabrics that have applications across various industries including automobiles, civil engineering and construction, agriculture, healthcare, industrial safety, personal protection etc.
Technical Textile products derive their demand from development and industrialization in a country.
Based on usage, there are 12 technical textile segments: Agrotech, Meditech, Buildtech, Mobiltech, Clothtech, Oekotech, Geotech, Packtech, Hometech, Protech, Indutech and Sportech.
For example, ‘mobiltech’ refers to products in vehicles such as seat belts and airbags, airplane seats; geotech, which is incidentally the fastest growing sub-segment, used to hold back soil, etc.