Quality Control Order

Regulatory

Mandatory quality standards order by India requiring BIS certification for specific products imported into India.

Sources

1. Press Information Bureau, Government of India — BIS implements Quality Control Orders (QCOs) to ensure quality products, 4 August 2022 pib.gov.in accessed 23 September 2026

A Quality Control Order turns an Indian Standard from a voluntary benchmark into a condition of market access. The Bureau of Indian Standards “implements Quality Control Orders (QCOs) issued by the Government which ensure that the notified products conform to the requirements of the relevant Indian Standard(s)” — note that the Government issues the order and BIS implements it. The effect is stated without qualification: “after the date of commencement of the QCO, no person can manufacture, import, distribute, sell, hire, lease, store or exhibit for sale any product(s) covered under the QCO without a Standard Mark except under a valid certification from BIS.” Two features matter to an exporter. Storage and exhibiting are caught alongside selling. And QCOs “are equally applicable to Indian manufacturers as well as foreign manufacturers” — so a foreign maker needs BIS certification in its own right, not an importer’s.

What this source settles. Where a government or an intergovernmental body is cited, the page is authoritative for the regime it administers and for the figures it publishes about itself. Where a standards body is cited, the entry names the body and describes the standard’s role, but quotes nothing from a text that is sold rather than published. In every case the operative document — the Act, the order, the manual, the issue of the standard your contract names — governs over any summary of it.

Related terms

• BIS Standards
• CBAM
• CDSCO
• CE Marking
• Certificate of Suitability
• CSRD

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).