India rated among top five accreditation systems in the world: Report

Germany topped the accreditation systems chart, per the Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) Report 2021. It was followed by the US, China and Italy

India has been ranked fifth among 184 countries in terms of the quality of its accreditation system, according to the recently released Global Quality Infrastructure Index (GQII) 2021.

The GQII ranks 184 economies on the basis of their quality infrastructure (QI).

India's overall QI system ranking continues to be tenth.

According to the index, India was ranked 21st in terms of metrology and ninth in standardisation.

Germany topped the accreditation systems chart. It was followed by the US, China and Italy.

The report was released in December 2022.

"We are proud that India is rated among the top five accrediting systems in the world...We anticipate that India will pave the way for more collaborations aimed at creating resilient systems of high-quality infrastructure," the Quality Council of India (QCI) said in a tweet. It also retweeted congratulations by the Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal.

The report said geographically, the top 25 are mainly located in Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, with some exceptions, such as India (10th), Brazil (13th), Australia (14th), and Turkey (16th).

While QCI is the national body for accreditation, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is the main body for formulation of standards and the Council Of Scientific And Industrial Research - National Physical Laboratory (CSIR–NPL) for the metrology system.

"India's accreditation system is the youngest among the three QI pillars in India, and we have jumped to global fifth within a year in these rankings," said Jaxay Shah, Chairperson, QCI.

QI is the technical backbone for international trade, with metrology, standardisation, accreditation and conformity assessment services providing reliability and trust between trading partners.

The GQII measures the relative development of countries' QI.

Accreditation helps establish the competence and credibility of conformity assessment bodies which perform testing, certification and inspection.

The national accreditation system as per international standards in India is established by the QCI.

The system is operated through the constituent boards of QCI, primarily the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies, which provides accreditation to the certification, inspection, and validation/ verification bodies, and the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, which provides accreditation to the testing, calibration and medical laboratories.

Accreditation is a process through which the national accreditation body creates competent bodies to check conformity to standards.

These bodies can be certification bodies, inspection bodies, as well as testing, calibration and medical labs.

Briefing the media on the rankings, QCI Secretary General Ravi Singh said the government is working in the direction of making India's accreditation systems "number one" in the world.

He said policy for quality infrastructure can be notified so that India's national strategy is made crystal clear.

Joint Secretary in the commerce and industry ministry Sanjiv said gradually, the government will move out of having its own inspectors and will only monitor the industry based on accredited quality assurance.

The GQII rankings are published and presented post-facto for each year based on the data collected till the end of that year.

The 2021 rankings are based on data till end of December 2021, collected and analysed through 2022.

It is an initiative on metrology, standardisation, accreditation and related services, supported by Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany.