Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distributions hosted the third meeting of Indo German Working Group on Quality Infrastructure at New Delhi . The Working Group has been established based on the declaration signed between Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution of the Republic of India and German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (now Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy) of the Federal Republic of Germany in April 2013 for cooperation in Standardization, Conformity Assessment and Product Safety.
From Indian side, the meeting was chaired by Mr. C. Viswanath, Secretary (Consumer Affairs), Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, GOI and co-chaired by Mr. Ministerialdirigent Stefan Schnorr, Directorate-General VI Digital and Innovation Policy, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) from German side.
The delegates from Indian and German sides comprised of the members from the concerned Ministries, National Standards Bodies, and representatives from trade associations. During the meeting, Secretary (Consumer Affairs) highlighted the objectives of advancing bilateral economic and technical cooperation in order to facilitate bilateral trade. He further emphasized the significance of co-operation with Germany on standardization to promote coordinated activities to facilitate bilateral trade focusing on products of trade interest to India such as leather, toys & textile. He also impressed the importance of the initiative in achieving the objectives of the Make in India, digital India and Swatch Bharat Campaign.
The session on inputs for 2016 on the work plan for implementation was chaired by Ms Alka Panda, Director General, BIS. Ms Panda highlighted the recent initiatives and developmental changes brought in the country on Smart cities, Smart Grid/Micro Grid, Low voltage Direct Current (LVDC), Solid waste management for collaboration in the these areas. She also highlighted the need to address the concerns of Indian exporters by organizing workshops and awareness programmes for compliance on EU regulations & REACH regulations.
The Indo – German delegations discussed extensively on the possible areas of cooperation and signed a Work Plan for implementation by both sides. The work plan outlines various activities for the next years’ cooperation which include amongst others, cooperation on Solid Waste Management, cooperation on standards on smart grids/ micro grid, LVDC, food safety, leather & leather products, air and water quality, product safety and toy safety, Legal Metrology and laboratory testing facilities.