OIML CERTIFICATE – POLITY
News: India can now issue OIML
certificates: What this means, its significance
What's
in the news?
● India
has become an OIML certificate-issuing authority,
the Union Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said.
Key
takeaways:
●
Addressing a press conference, Singh said
that the Legal Metrology Division, Department of Consumer Affairs, is now
authorised to issue OIML certificates.
● An
OIML certificate is issued for selling
weights & measures anywhere in the world.
Key
features:
●
To sell a weight or measure in the
International market an OIML Pattern Approval certificate is mandatory, which
will be issued by the Department of
Consumer Affairs.
●
India follows OIML recommendations and
procedures of testing and calibration of weights and measures.
●
The domestic manufacturers of weighing and
measuring equipment, like BP meters, oximeters and cloth scales, can now get
the instruments tested in India itself before selling them in the international
market.
International Organization of Legal
Metrology (OIML):
● It
is an intergovernmental treaty
organization, established in 1955 in order to promote the global
harmonization of legal metrology procedures that underpin and facilitate
international trade.
● It
plays a crucial role in harmonising national laws and regulations on
performance of measuring instruments like clinical thermometers, alcohol breath
analysers, radar speed measuring instruments, ship tanks found at ports, and
petrol dispensing units.
● India became a member of the OIML in
1956.
In the same year, India signed the metric convention with the standards of
Weights and Measures Act.
● Other Countries that can issue this certificate are
Australia, Switzerland, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, France, United
Kingdom, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, and Slovakia.