World Standards Day 2026: BIS Launches Silver Refinery Scheme

India marked World Standards Day 2026 with a national event in New Delhi at which the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) unveiled a certification scheme for silver refineries and mints, seven fresh Indian Standards and two standardisation roadmaps. The theme chosen for the year was 'Shared Vision for a Better World: SDG 7 (Clean & Affordable Energy)', and much of the day's business was built around the country's clean energy shift.

Who spoke

The presidential address was delivered by Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, New and Renewable Energy, and Education, who linked Indian Standards to India's energy transformation and said the march towards Viksit Bharat rests on quality alone. Ministers of State B. L. Verma and Nimuben Jayantibhai Bambhaniya also addressed the gathering, the latter pressing for standards work in newer domains that serves industry and the consumer at once. Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare argued that protection of the consumer must be preventive, resting on sound testing, digital enforcement and conformity assessment. BIS Director General Sanjay Garg said the organisation is among the first national standards bodies anywhere to have made both the writing of standards and access to them wholly digital.

BIS Silver Refinery Scheme

The scheme carries structured purity assurance and hallmarking to silver bullion and coins, on the pattern of the Gold Refinery Scheme already in force. After the gazette notification of Amendment No. 1 to IS 2112:2025, fine silver bullion and coins of three purity grades — 999.9, 999.5 and 999.0 parts per thousand — fall within the standard's scope. BIS will licence refineries and mints once their refining processes and testing infrastructure are assessed, and a hallmarked piece will bear the BIS Standard Mark with the word SILVER, the purity grade, the maker's identification mark and a unique serial number that allows a batch to be traced. Testing is prescribed through gravimetric, ICP-OES and Spark-OES methods.

Seven new Indian Standards

• IS 19967:2026 for electric vehicle charging cables, rated up to 1,100 V AC and 1,500 V DC across AC Modes 1 to 3 and DC Mode 4.
• IS 19891:2026 for pedal assisted bicycles, or EPACs, of continuous rated power up to 0.25 kW with the speed cut off at 25 km/h.
• IS 17192 Part-6:2026 for wearable lower-limb service robots, tested with anthropomorphic dummies.
• IS 19960:2026 for paediatric Panchakarma Droni tables and IS 19956:2026 for therapeutic footwear meant for diabetic and neuropathic patients.
• IS 19952:2026 for flexible plywood and IS 19825:2026 for PVC coated fibreglass insect screens.

Roadmaps, awards and outreach

A roadmap for standards in sustainable agriculture, prepared by the Environment and Ecology Division Council of BIS and aligned with the National Action Plan on Climate Change, spans 15 categories and sets out formulation over short-term, mid-term and long-term horizons of 1 year, 2 to 3 years and 4 to 5 years. A second roadmap, for sustainable manufacturing, picks out low-carbon technology, resource efficiency and the circular economy. 16 technical committees received the Best Technical Committee Award. Six institutions — IIT Ropar, IIT Dharwad, NIT Manipur, NIT Meghalaya, Assam Textiles Institute and RGIPT — came on board as MoU partners, carrying the total to 98. BIS also issued a laboratory safety handbook and two comic books, taking its comic collection to 13 titles, and launched a Digital Standard Reader that turns XML standards into searchable, translatable smart documents. BIS works in over 600 ISO and IEC technical committees, and ISO, IEC and ITU released a joint video message for the day.

TEC marks the day as well

The Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC), the national standards body for telecommunications under the Department of Telecommunications, held its own observance at Manak Hall in New Delhi, led by Senior DDG Syed Tausif Abbas. Working under the Telecommunications (Framework to Notify Standards, Conformity Assessment and Certification) Rules, 2025, TEC has put out 596 standards, designated 82 Conformity Assessment Bodies and granted more than 5,400 certificates.