NITI Aayog is of the view that quality plays a very critical role in both manufacturing and services sector. He added that services sector contributes largely to the Indian GDP as compared to manufacturing sector. “Given the large share of services in our economy, we need to look at quality in the service sector too. Quality is very important in the services sector and the span of quality implementation becomes much larger if we look at areas like tourism, healthcare, telecom, agriculture etc.,” he stated.
Emphasizing on the quality for Industry 4.0, Dr Saraswat said that industry should adopt ‘Smart Quality’ in their working. It is a framework for which companies can apply to redesign through quality processes and create value for organization. Smart Quality consists of 5 building blocks which include smart quality controls, smart quality assurance, process and product and smart compliance system. “Predicting the future of quality in ever changing world can be very challenging and we need to have systems perspective, systematic change adoption along with integrating sustainable development,” he added.
Speaking on the session ‘Quality by Regulation and Policy’, Mr Anil Agrawal, Additional Secretary, DPIIT said that the government is coming up with the PLI scheme for manufacturing of toys in the country for BIS compliant products. “Any product that complies with BIS standards for toys is an eligible product for PLI” he added. He also mentioned that ever since the introduction of Quality Control Order for toys, more than 85 per cent of toys are found to be safe for children as per the market survey.
Mr Agrawal further stated that since the introduction of PLI scheme in the air conditioner sector, the industry has increased production. “Now we are thinking of making India a manufacturing hub for global markets,” he noted. He further stated that Quality standardization needs to be led by the industry. He also urged the industry to proactively work in areas of innovation, standardization, metrology, conformity assessment and market surveillance to be able to cater to global markets.
Mr H J S Pasricha, Scientist-F & Deputy Director General, BIS said that BIS is working to reduce the compliance burden for the industry and shifting to adopt the risk-based surveillance approach along with doing away with the factory inspection for those players who show consistent compliance with the regulations. “We will also introduce a system of self-compliance report in our portal for all registered manufacturers to further help the industry,” he added. He also said that more than 94 per cent of applications for licenses have been disposed off by BIS within the stipulated timeframe.