Information Service – BIS

Information Services

The International Relations & Technical Information Services Department of BIS is the nodal department in BIS providing technical information services to interested parties.

In compliance with the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO-TBT Agreement) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Government of India, Ministry of Commerce has designated two WTO-TBT Enquiry Points to answer all reasonable inquiries from other members and interested parties in other countries concerning standards, technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures:

• • Bureau of Indian Standards – For all queries except those related to the Telecom Sector, and
  • Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) – for all queries related to the Telecom Sector The Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mandates member countries of the WTO to notify other member countries through the WTO Secretariat, all proposed technical regulations that could affect trade. For India, the Ministry of Commerce notifies all such proposed technical regulations, standards & conformity assessment procedures relating to technical regulations through WTO Secretariat, Geneva. Parties in other member countries that wish to make comments on such notifications can obtain copies of the text of the proposed technical regulations from the relevant notifying authorities or WTO-TBT Enquiry Point(s). Other member countries and interested parties in these member countries can also seek a response to all reasonable queries related to standards and conformity assessment procedures referred to in the existing technical regulations from the WTO TBT Enquiry Point(s). Being one of the WTO-TBT Enquiry Points in India, BIS provides the information sought on relevant technical regulations from India to other member countries.

As an initiative to serve the national stakeholders, BIS as the WTO-TBT Enquiry point provides the interested parties (organizations/individuals) in India an opportunity to review and comment on notifications of other members which can affect their trade interests, by electronically disseminating the TBT Notifications of other countries to the national stakeholders. The information can also be accessed from the WTO-TBT webpage and comments uploaded. Comments on the documents should be made as soon as possible but at least a fortnight before the expiry of the period of comments for these to be communicated to the Ministry of Commerce for suitably taking up with the concerned regulating authority.