On January 5, 2026, in accordance with the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC) of India issued three important announcements, officially postponing the implementation dates of the following three Quality Control Orders (QCOs), thereby providing relevant enterprises with more adequate preparation time.

On November 20, 2025, the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC) under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers of India issued multiple notifications announcing the withdrawal of six previously issued Quality Control Orders. This decision was made by the DCPC based on public interest considerations and in consultation with the Bureau of Indian Standards, in accordance with Section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016. The withdrawal took effect immediately upon announcement. Compliance actions already completed or initiated prior to the withdrawal remain unaffected.

QCOs implementation date postponed from August 25, 2024, to December 24, 2024.

India's Regulations on Imported Chemicals took effect on October 1, 2023. Originally, the regulation was set to take effect on July 1, 2023, but was delayed until October 1. On September 30, 2023, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in India issued Circular No.23/2023, which made the following modifications to sections (4.1) and (4.2) of Circular No.15/2023:

On September 13, India made the significant decision that it will enforce stringent quality regulations on various goods. This announcement will be published in the Gazette of India within four months after the conclusion of the WTO technical barriers to trade (TBT) consultation process. The announcement was made in accordance with the Bureau of Indian Standards Act (11 of 2016), and the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers in India.

Recently, India made the significant decision that it will enforce stringent quality control orders (QCOs) on Polypropylene (PP) materials for molding and extrusion as well as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) homopolymers. In accordance with the latest QCO, PP and PVC should be included in the BIS mandatory certification list, to ensure that domestically produced and imported PP and PVC products meet stringent requirements and offer consumers safer and more reliable products.

On July 21, 2023, the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC) in India announced the delay of the Quality Control Order (QCO) for the following ten substances.

India’s Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs published Circular No.15/2023-Customs in which mandatory additional qualifiers in import/export declarations shall be made such as scientific names, IUPAC names, brand names as applicable, to aid in reducing queries and improve the efficiency of assessment. The Shipping Bill (Electronic Integrated Declaration and Paperless Processing) Regulations 2019 was scheduled to be implemented on July 1, 2023, and has been postponed until October 1, 2023, because of strong opposition from the chemical industry.

Statistics indicate that the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) in India has reinforced the scrutiny of imported goods in the first quarter of this year. Products from several enterprises exporting chemicals to India have been detained because of the absence of the mandatory BIS certificate. In the following article, we summarize the latest BIS lists and their corresponding implementation timelines (as of March 2023). All products in the List under Mandatory Certification must obtain relevant certificates from the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) before they are introduced to the Indian market.

The ICSCs are developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the ILO with European Commission cooperation. It aims at safeguarding the occupational safety and health of workers. The ICSCs consist of special data sheets that provide basic information on the safety of chemicals and their influence on health at workplace. Moreover, information provided on the cards also includes the UN Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classification and labelling of chemicals. The information will be regularly updated so that information in the cards can be the most up-to-date. Currently there are 1784 ICSCs available in the database.