New Delhi, Jan 24 (KNN) The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has emphasised the adoption of the Machine Applicable Readable and Transferable (SMART) approach to enhance the readability and understanding of Indian standards for all stakeholders.

In his inaugural address at a two-day digital transformation workshop, Pramod Kumar Tiwari, Director General, BIS, highlighted the challenge faced by experts and industry stakeholders who find it difficult to participate in standard formulation due to the technical complexity and voluminous nature of standards.

“This problem becomes even bigger when we look at the Indian landscape, which is dominated by Small and Micro sectors. More than 80 per cent of the licenses the BIS has granted are to micro and small sectors. They find it very difficult to make sense of the standards,” he said.

Tiwari stressed the importance of crafting standards that are accessible to various stakeholders, particularly at the grassroots level.

With BIS actively raising awareness about standards and conducting training for village panchayats, Tiwari underscored the challenge of ensuring standards comprehension among the numerous village panchayats in the country.

“We have nearly 2.6 lakh village panchayats in the country. We are conducting training for them as they play an important role in the execution of government programmes. The challenge is how they can understand the standards. I believe the SMART standards will give an effective answer to the problem we are facing,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the SMART standards could effectively address this issue by being machine interpretable and machine-readable, ensuring accessibility and understanding for all stakeholders.

The BIS DG welcomed the SMART standard initiative of the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO).

The workshop, organised by the IEC and ISO in collaboration with BIS, discussed the rollout of the SMART project and explored India's potential participation. As a founding member of ISO and IEC since 1948, BIS has actively engaged in technical and policy discussions at both international bodies.

With over 22,000 standards, India ranks among the largest standards-making bodies globally.

The workshop witnessed active participation from ISO Central Secretariat, IEC Secretariat, and several ISO member countries, including Japan, South Africa, Germany, UK, among others.

(KNN Bureau)