The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi to collaborate in the field of standardisation and conformity assessment. The MoU was signed by IIT Delhi Director Professor V Ramgopal Rao and Director General of BIS Surina Rajan.
BIS and IIT Delhi have also agreed to set up a Centre of Excellence in the field of standardization, testing and conformity assessment.
According to the MoU, IIT Delhi will provide infrastructure support for research and development projects of relevance to standardisation and BIS will provide financial support to IIT Delhi for projects.
Rao highlighted that around 50 faculty members of the institute are part of the technical committees of BIS and hoped that the memorandum would strengthen the collaboration further. Rao underscored the importance of involving youngsters in standardization and discussed various possibilities of incorporating standardisation in the academic curriculum of IIT, Delhi.
He also emphasized that technology innovation and standards development shall be interwoven seamlessly to foster development of technology oriented products and services. Rajan highlighted the upcoming areas like ‘5G application layer standardization’ where BIS has taken the lead in ISO/IEC.
He underlined the importance of standards in ensuring data security, especially in the financial field and emphasised the need of active involvement of technological institutes like IITs in elevating India’s position from ‘Standard takers’ to ‘Standard makers’.
She further stated that creating synergy among premier educational institutions with involvement of young minds in the area of standardisation process would benefit the country.
Initially, the MoU will remain in force for a period of five years and can be extended further. As per the MoU, both the institutions will jointly organise training and short-term education programmes on standardisation and conformity assessment, besides exploring the possibility of the hiring of IIT Delhi faculty as consultants on secondment basis.
The MoU will also explore the possibility of using laboratory facilities available at IIT Delhi for catering to the requirements of various conformity assessment schemes of the BIS.