Govt mapping laboratories to plug critical gaps: Goyal

The government is mapping all laboratories in the country in a bid to plug the critical gaps and modernise them to make India a quality-conscious country, Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

State-run Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has already mapped 3,000-odd NABL-accredited non-diagnostic laboratories in the country. It is mulling how to map the non-accredited non-diagnostic labs set up by PSUs, industries and education institutes like IITs.

Addressing a day-long seminar on 'Emerging global trends in laboratories for self-reliant India', Goyal said: "Unless we are leaders in quality, we will not be able to become a developed nation and leverage the fruits of international engagement that we are trying to expand."

The time is right to engage with the private sector to build a roadmap to make India a "quality-conscious country" by strengthening infrastructure, adopting modern technology and focusing on sustainability.

"We have started the process of mapping laboratory infrastructure available in India. Now, we can make the assessment of critical gaps in lab infrastructure," he said.

The gaps could be in terms of long time to get the quality certification, level of technology and type of machinery used in the labs among others.

The BIS is making an assessment of the critical gaps in laboratory infrastructure and build a roadmap in a defined time frame to plug these gaps, he added.

To address the gaps, the minister said the government is looking at investments in the laboratory infrastructure, and even provide support to private labs for modernisation.

The minister further said the government is going to leverage latest technologies like artificial intelligence to reduce the human interface while testing and reporting those tests in bare minimum time.

"With the advent of technology and digital outreach across the country, we can have a significant impact on the way we are testing and test results are communicated," he added.

On quality standards, Goyal said not only every product and process should have Indian standards but the domestic standards should also align with the global norms.

"Today whatever work we are doing, it is part of the larger global ecosystem. We cannot afford to live in a different world altogether," he pointed out.

The government has issued 450-odd quality control orders and asked BIS along with the commerce ministry to set up a crack team to do a complete study on quality standards.

The team should look into what quality standards the world has adopted, what are the requirements and needs globally, which are the areas where we need to focus and what we need to do to build necessary infrastructure, he added.

The minister also asked BIS to "reorient, rejig, and re-assess" its working to become more contemporary, technology driven and modern.

BIS Director General Pramod Kumar Tiwari said the national standard setting body is looking at developing sustainability standards. The plan is to revisit 22,000 standards and align them with sustainability.

TIC Council Director General Hanane Taidi also spoke at the seminar.