India’s ambitious push for quality control is facing a major test. The country’s standards regime, built around the Bureau of Indian Standards, is under strain as a surge of substandard imports infiltrates the market using fraudulent certifications. These products—ranging from steel and construction materials to toys and consumer electronics—undermine public safety, distort competition, and weaken trust in India’s regulatory framework.The playbook is simple. Importers obtain genuine BIS certifications issued to licensed foreign manufacturers and upload them to the customs portal. Uncertified goods, often sourced from factories without BIS approval, are then cleared under the guise of legitimate shipments. Customs, lacking a real-time verification mechanism, remains ill-equipped to detect fraud. The result: a steady stream of low-quality imports slipping past regulatory checks, diluting India’s efforts to enforce global standards.
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