June 9: World Accreditation Day

Every year, the World Accreditation Day is celebrated on June 9. The initiative of celebrating the day was launched by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC).

This year the day was celebrated under theme

Theme: Accreditation, Improving Food Safety

India

In India, the day was celebrated by the Quality Council of India. Also, the National Accreditation Board for Testing and calibration Laboratories and the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies conducted webinars.

According to FSSAI, the following are the current requirements in India regarding accreditation

• Proficiency Testing
• Developing Rapid Test Kits
• The number of accredited reference material producers should be increased
• Integrated system for information exchange
• Rapid Test kits for food analysis
• Accreditation Scheme to certify products
• India also needs to institutionalize virtual assessments.

Quality Council of India

The Quality Council of India was established in 1997. The main objective of QCI is to establish quality standards all over social and economic sectors in the country. It was set up as a public private partnership based on the Netherlands model. It was set up by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal trade (DPIIT).

The key promoters of QCI are CII (Confederation of Indian Industry), FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry).

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2020