India moves to 5th place in global ranking of accreditation systems for quality

Subject : Schemes

Section :Indices

Concept:

India has been placed at the fifth position out of 184 countries in terms of its accreditation system, according to the recently released Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) 2021.

Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII)

GQII is an initiative on metrology, standardization, accreditation and related services, supported by Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany.
The GQII ranks 184 economies on the basis of their quality infrastructure (QI).
QI is the technical backbone for international trade, with metrology, standardisation, accreditation and conformity assessment services providing reliability and trust between trading partners.
The GQII measures the relative development of countries’ QI.
The GQII rankings are published and presented post-facto for each year based on the data collected till the end of that year.

India’s Performance

India’s overall QI system ranking continues to be tenth.
According to the index, India was ranked 21st in terms of metrology and ninth in standardization.
Quality Council of India (QCI) is the national body for accreditation, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is the main body for formulation of standards and the Council Of Scientific And Industrial Research – National Physical Laboratory (CSIRNPL) for the metrology system.

Accreditation system

Accreditation helps establish the competence and credibility of conformity assessment bodies which perform testing, certification and inspection.
The national accreditation system as per international standards in India is established by the QCI.
The system is operated through the constituent boards of QCI, primarily the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies, which provides accreditation to the certification, inspection, and validation/ verification bodies, and the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, which provides accreditation to the testing, calibration and medical laboratories.