The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has launched a series of raids across major e-commerce warehouses, including those of Amazon and Flipkart, to crack down on the sale of uncertified products. The raids were conducted in several cities, including Lucknow, Gurugram, and Delhi.
On March 7, BIS officials confiscated 215 toys and 24 hand blenders that lacked the mandatory BIS certification from an Amazon warehouse in Lucknow. A previous raid in February at another Amazon facility in Gurugram resulted in the seizure of a wide range of non-compliant items, including 58 aluminium foils, 34 metallic water bottles, 25 toys, 20 hand blenders, seven PVC cables, two food mixers, and one speaker.
A separate operation at a Flipkart warehouse in Gurugram, managed by Instakart Services Pvt Ltd, led to the seizure of 534 stainless steel bottles, 134 toys, and 41 speakers, all without the necessary BIS certification. Further investigations traced these uncertified products back to Techvision International Pvt Ltd. BIS subsequently raided two Techvision facilities in Delhi, uncovering a large cache of uncertified goods, including 7,000 electric water heaters, 4,000 electric food mixers, 95 electric room heaters, and 40 gas stoves.
In response, BIS has filed two court cases against Techvision International Pvt Ltd under the BIS Act, 2016, with additional cases under review. The penalties for violations under this law can include fines up to ten times the value of the goods or imprisonment for up to two years.
The BIS has ramped up its market surveillance efforts, with a focus on a wide range of consumer goods such as pressure cookers, hand-held blenders, food mixers, electric irons, room heaters, PVC cables, gas stoves, toys, helmets, switches, sockets, and aluminium foils. These items, often prone to substandard quality and posing safety risks, must carry BIS certification as mandated by the Central Government.
Despite these regulations, BIS has found several uncertified products being sold on prominent e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, Myntra, and BigBasket. These products either lack the ISI Mark or display invalid certification numbers.
To address this, BIS has issued formal warnings to these platforms, urging them to ensure that only certified products are listed for sale. Consumers have been encouraged to utilize the BIS Care app to verify the certification status of products and report any non-compliant items.
