Non-ISI Certified Toys under Search and Seizure Operations

· 41,489 Toys Seized during 2021-2023 in 114 search and seizure raids including 4178 Toys against Two Firms for Misuse of Bureau of Indian Standards Standard Mark

The Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ashwini Kumar Choubey in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha that, in order to curb the sale of non-ISI certified Toys and to ensure implementation of Toys Quality Control Order, 2020, 114 Search and Seizure operations were carried out in which a total quantity of 41,489 toys were seized during the year 2021-22 and 2022-2023 (upto 23-03-2023) which includes seizure of 4178 toys against two firms for misuse of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) standard mark.

Safety of Toys is under compulsory BIS certification from 1st Jan. 2021 as per the Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under Section 16 of the BIS Act, 2016. Accordingly, it has been compulsory for toys to conform to the corresponding Indian Standards for Safety of Toys and to bear BIS Standard Mark under a licence from BIS as per Scheme-I of Schedule –II of BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018.

As per this Quality Control Order, read with Section 17 of the BIS Act, 2016, no person shall manufacture, import, distribute, sell, hire, lease, store or exhibit for sale any toys without the ISI mark. Under the BIS Product Certification scheme i.e. Scheme-I of Schedule –II of the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018, Licence is granted to manufacturing units to use the Standard Mark on the product as per the relevant Indian Standards. Accordingly, toy manufacturing units including foreign manufacturing units exporting toys to India are required to obtain BIS licence for safety of toys.

BIS also conducts factory and market surveillance under which samples of ISI marked toys are drawn from the factories and market and tested in labs according to the Indian Standard, to ensure that ISI marked toys available to consumer are safe and conforming to prescribed standards.