Measuring up to the standard

In today's world, standards wield not only technical but also strategic significance. India needs a change in mindset to elevate its industry standards to a global level

In an era when rapid technological advancement fuels economic growth, the landscape of standards-making and governance has undergone a significant transformation. Each new technological innovation necessitates standardisation for widespread global adoption. However, the pace of adoption, particularly in innovative digital technologies, often outstrips the traditional standard development processes, leading to emergence of de facto standards, such as the Windows operating system or the Intel CPU architecture.

The rapid technological evolution has reshaped the landscape of global standardisation bodies. Traditional entities like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which were heavily influenced by national governments, have been supplanted by industry-led organisations tailored for specific sectors. For example, internet-related standards are now primarily shaped by the industry-led Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and non-profit ICANN, among others. Similarly, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has become the key arbiter of telecommunications standards. This shift towards specialised bodies allows for more agile responses to the unique demands of the rapidly evolving industries. Companies at the forefront of technology development dominate these standard-making bodies, standardising patented innovations into standard essential patents (SEPs), generating substantial wealth. For example, the 3G technology alone resulted in over 23,000 SEPs, yielding hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.

Standards have become critical in international trade after import tariffs were reduced following the Uruguay Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. Some governments employ standards, or technical regulations, to control imports, mandating local testing and certification, or using other ways of raising costs, thus hindering market access. Despite WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement aiming to mitigate such barriers, weak enforcement limits its efficacy. Consequently, standards now hold not only technical relevance but also geopolitical and strategic value, prompting nations to vie for influence in global standard-making bodies.

India’s track record in standards management has been mixed. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Act, 1986, was expected to create a world-class standards governance in the country by providing a centralised statutory framework for formulating and enforcing standards across all sectors. However, shortcomings emerged in both standard formulation and standard enforcement. India struggled to create an ecosystem where domestic innovations could lead to the development of national, let alone global, standards. Though BIS formulated over 20,000 Indian standards, these were largely adaptations of global standards. 

It failed to formulate standards for technological innovations like laminate poly-packs pioneered by Tata Tea, software products like Tally or Finacle, or traditional Indian practices like water-harvesting and below-sea-level farming. These highlight a missed opportunity to incentivise Indian innovation through standardisation. BIS also struggled to get Indian standards adopted within industry and governments. Despite their availability, many government tenders still referenced global standards, as Indian standards weren’t obligatory. Under the BIS Act, mandating an Indian standard required obtaining a licence, burdened with regulatory control and inspector-raj issues, leading to resistance from industry. Consequently, by 2013, only a few Indian standards were mandated, while global standards remained popular in the Indian market, disadvantaging Indian manufacturers, while foreign companies easily accessed the Indian market.

In 2013, India witnessed a ground-breaking breakthrough. Faced with the surge of sub-standard and unsafe Chinese electronic goods, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a compulsory registration order, mandating safety standards for laptops, desktops, mobile phones, microwave ovens, and other electronic goods. This marked the first occasion when a technical regulation under the BIS Act got widespread adoption in India since it introduced a self-registration scheme that replaced the burdensome licence-based system. Manufacturers underwent testing and certification by accredited labs, after which BIS granted them registration for sales in India. Remarkably, within months, the scheme garnered over 90 per cent adoption. The introduction of the scheme itself was incredible to most because the extant BIS Act only provided for licence-based technical regulation, yet MeitY devised a self-registration scheme under the same Act, invoking the residual powers of the government. Beyond enhancing product safety, the scheme spurred investment in testing infrastructure and attracted world-class testing to meet industry demands.   

The scheme represented a turning point in India’s standards of governance. Capitalising on its success, the BIS amended the Act in 2016 to mainstream self-registration and self-certification, fostering greater adoption of Indian standards across industries. Consequently, the number of products complying with mandatory standards surged from a handful to over 500 by 2023, with expectations of adding 1,500 to 2,000 more in the near future. Moving ahead, benchmarking India’s schemes with global compliance costs should be done as a measure to facilitate even greater adoption of Indian standards. BIS should aim for simplified standard adoption, supported by effective monitoring and stringent penalties for non-compliance. This represents a departure from the conventional approach, which emphasised rigorous, complex, and costly adoption with lenient monitoring.

BIS needs to extend reforms to standards formulation. India’s innovation landscape has transformed dramatically in the past decade, with over 2,00,000 registered startups and a four-fold increase in patent applications between 2013-14 and 2022-23. India should embrace a culture of developing indigenous standards, harnessing the power of 1.4 billion users and a multi-trillion-dollar-market to elevate Indian standards to the global stage. To achieve this, firstly, we need industry-led agile and responsive standard formulation bodies, empowered through amendments to the BIS Act, with BIS transitioning into a regulator overseeing these industry-led entities. Secondly, the government should incentivise Indian participation in global standard-making bodies by subsidising startups and industry professionals. Thirdly, the Ministry of External Affairs could support Indian experts in securing a seat on the high-table of the global standard-making bodies, especially in sectors like software and fintech, among others, in which Indian industry and startups have demonstrated great prowess.

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the clarion call of “zero defect zero effect” . Could India not reference its “Make-in-India” initiative with this new standard and socialise it to make it a global standard? All that is needed is a change in mindset.

The writer is distinguished visiting professor, IIT Kanpur, and a former defence secretary