Developing countries, including India, generally perceive Quality control orders (QCO) established to ensure adherence to stipulated quality standards as barriers erected for increased compliance and regulation. Stakeholders involved get anxious about adapting to a new culture.
However, the strategic benefits of such QCOs in unleashing global opportunities often go unnoticed.
QCOs offer a structured path to ensure that the foundation of our manufacturing sector is built on safety and quality from the beginning, helping to prevent the reliance on inferior goods that can undermine long-term industrial growth. A quality culture in the country today is non-negotiable to ensure that India is perceived as a trusted manufacturing economy.
India realises the importance of ensuring a quality ecosystem, which is amply visible in the strides made in global trade facilitation through the signing of Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) with nine countries. India plans to expand this network to 10 more nations by December this year. MRAs are agreements between countries that allow each party to accept the other’s product testing and certification. These agreements enable bilateral trade facilitation, making it easier and smoother for goods to move mutually without facing redundant or cumbersome testing and certification procedures, thereby enhancing market access mutually. MRAs are thereby emerging as building blocks to enhance the adoption of quality standards amongst the partner members capable on snowballing and funnelling globally.
It’s natural to think that MRAs, with their limited partnering scope, facilitate the adoption of technical standards on a multilateral or Most Favoured Nation (MFN) basis? The MRAs emulate the success witnessed in the deepening of globalisation through the Regional Trade Agreement – RTAs Model (FTAs/Preferential Trade Agreements) established for market integration, primarily enhancing market access through tariff preferences amongst partner countries.
While MRAs do facilitate the implementation of QCOs, the readiness of a country in terms of the manufacturing capabilities across the supply chain is, in fact, the real challenge. Quality Control Orders, therefore, are the more crucial tools as a precursor to MRAs in the context setting and ensuring quality standards.
The challenge of QCOs can no doubt be met nationally when the desired technological maturity is attained, but the prevalence and preference for GVCs on account of price, quality and sustained supply make implementation of QCOs challenging. It is at this juncture of readiness, the MRAs can do a strategic handholding in bootstrapping the quality culture, integrating it seamlessly with GVC partners, supporting the primary function of QCOs to protect consumers, promote domestic manufacturing, and ensure global compatibility.
Another important factor in the success of QCOs is the strategic use of technology. In today’s rapidly advancing technological landscape, technology can be a powerful enabler of the QCO framework. By collaborating with global technology leaders and research institutions, India can accelerate its quality standards and ensure its manufacturing sector is aligned with the latest global standards.
For example, in industries like automotive, electronics, and chemicals, technology can help improve product testing, certification, and monitoring processes, making it easier for domestic manufacturers to comply with QCOs. This collaboration can also ensure that the R&D ecosystem for quality improvements grows in tandem with the industrial base. The role of technology platforms, AI-driven testing, and blockchain for product traceability will play a pivotal role in ensuring transparency and consistency in QCO enforcement.
A key dimension in understanding the effectiveness of QCOs is the demand-supply situation within an industry. The more dispersed the market players are, the greater the need for a unified quality standard. The Indian toy industry provides an example of how QCOs can create a level playing field. In India, a growing market for toys has seen the introduction of QCOs that ensure imported toys meet the same safety standards as domestic ones.
A 2019 survey by the Quality Council of India (QCI) found that 67 per cent of imported toys failed to meet safety standards, including heavy metals and flammability. Eventually, the introduction of QCOs has provided a much-needed safeguard for children’s products, preventing the entry of unsafe toys into the market.
In the context of India’s growing manufacturing sector, QCOs will play an even greater role in sectors like textiles, chemicals, and automotive, where market players are often scattered across regions, with differing levels of production capabilities. Without uniform standards, the challenge of ensuring quality consistency across the supply chain can be overwhelming. By mandating QCOs, India ensures uniformity and fair competition in sectors with dispersed players, allowing the whole ecosystem to adhere to the same quality thresholds. While MRAs can simplify trade processes, QCOs are the core drivers of ensuring that quality is embedded into every product in India’s manufacturing sector.
However, despite the strategic importance of QCOs, their actual implementation has faced repeated delays in India. For a key consumer-facing product such as PVC, which affects millions of lives, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Quality Control Orders were to come into force in August 2024. But this enforcement was deferred to December 2024, then postponed to August 2025, and now further pushed to December 2025. Such successive extensions reflect the regulatory challenges in enforcing mandatory standards across a fragmented industrial base. While these deferrals could be to provide time for compliance, they also dilute the immediate effectiveness of QCOs as tools for ensuring quality and safeguarding public interest.
To truly harness the potential of MRAs and realise the vision of a quality-driven export economy, India must demonstrate an unwavering commitment to timely QCO implementation. Delays undermine not only regulatory credibility but also the confidence of global partners relying on India to uphold uniform standards. As global markets grow increasingly quality-conscious, the window of opportunity for Indian manufacturers to lead with trust and compliance will narrow. By aligning its regulatory timelines with its strategic trade ambitions, India can move beyond reactive extensions and institutionalise a proactive, technology-enabled quality framework. Only then can QCOs evolve from being perceived as domestic bottlenecks to becoming catalysts for global competitiveness and sustainable industrial growth.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. |
