India Prioritises Toy Safety, Grants 29 Licences To Manufacturers In Seven Countries, No Approval For Chinese Units

The governemnt on Friday (3 February) informed the Parliament that 29 licenses have been granted to foreign toy manufacturing units in seven countries.

However, no license has been granted to any toy manufacturing unit in China, the Parliament was told.

Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha on Friday (3 February) said that the Safety of Toys is under compulsory Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) certification from 1 January 2021 as per the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 issued by the Commerce Ministry under Section 16 of the BIS Act, 2016.

"Accordingly, as per this order, it has been made compulsory for toys to conform to the corresponding Indian Standards for Safety of Toys and to bear Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Standard Mark under a licence from BIS...," the minister said.

As per this Quality Control Order, no person shall manufacture, import, distribute, sell, hire, lease, store or exhibit for sale any toys without the ISI mark, he said.

"Under the BIS Product Certification scheme...., licence is granted to manufacturing units to use the Standard Mark on the product as per the relevant Indian Standards," the minister said.

"Accordingly, toy manufacturing units including foreign manufacturing units exporting toys to India are required to obtain BIS licence for safety of toys," he added.

Under BIS Foreign Manufacturers certification scheme, 29 licences have been granted to foreign toy manufacturing units in seven countries - Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Czech Republic.

"3 licences have been granted in 2021-22 and the remaining 26 in 2022-23.  No licence has been granted to any unit in China," the minister said.