Ahead of festive season, another blow to China as govt notifies quality control mechanism for LED lights

Ahead of the festive season, India has dealt another blow to China. Chinese LED lights, which are found in almost every Indian household during Diwali, will have to meet certain standards in terms of quality.

In September, the government had made the random sampling of all imported light-emitting diodes (LED) and control gears for LED products mandatory. According to a notification issued by the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), now all LED products being imported from other countries will be subjected to stringent quality tests. Only the consignments of the samples which meet the criteria will get clearance from the Customs. If the consignments do not meet the required standards, the entire bulk will be sent back or destroyed.

This is a step towards discouraging sellers and buyers from procuring Chinese LED lights amid the border tensions at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh.

“Samples will be picked up for the specified items on a random basis from randomly selected consignments and will be sent to Bureau of Indian Standards-recognized laboratories for testing of defined safety parameters", under the Electronics and Information Technology Goods (Requirement of Compulsory Registration) Order, 2012, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a notification.

The Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS), which comes under the Ministry of Commerce, has ordered an inquiry into the LED products being imported from the country's major ports like Kandla, Paradip, Kochi, Mumbai.