Quality Council of India (QCI)

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles asked the Quality Council of India (QCI) to strive to bring about convergence of all the various quality and standards organizations in the country so that they may work in tandem towards building a world-class quality system in India and make quality a national mission.

The Quality Council of India (QCI)

The Quality Council of India (QCI) is a pioneering experiment of the

Government of India in setting up organizations in partnership with the Indian industry.

• A committee which included various interested ministries and stakeholders including industries were constituted to make suitable recommendations. The work of the committee was coordinated by the then Department of Industries (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion) and the recommendations were submitted to the Cabinet in 1996.
• Quality Council of India(QCI) in 1997 as a non-profit autonomous society registered under Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
• Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry is the nodal department for QCI.
• The Chairman of QCI is appointed by the Prime Minister on the recommendation of the industry to the government.
• Quality Council of India publishes a quarterly magazine known as “Quality India“
• Quality Council of India aims to establish an accreditation structure in the country and to spread quality movement in India by undertaking a National Quality Campaign.
• Quality Council of India is governed by a Council comprising of 38 members including the Chairman and Secretary General.
• The Council has an equal representation of Government, Industry and other Stakeholders.

Key Objectives

• QCI has been established to create a mechanism for independent third party assessment of products, services and processes.
• It plays a pivotal role at the national level in propagating, adoption and adherence to quality standards in all important spheres of activities including education, healthcare, environment protection, governance, social sectors, infrastructure sector and such other areas of organized activities that have significant bearing in improving the quality of life and wellbeing of the citizens of India.

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)

• ONDC is in an early stage of formation that been incorporated as a Section 8 company in December 2021 with the Quality Council of India and Protean eGov Technologies Limited as initial promoters.
• ONDC is an initiative aiming at promoting open networks for all aspects of exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks.
• The foundations of ONDC are to be open protocols for all aspects in the entire chain of activities in exchange of goods and services, similar to hypertext transfer protocol for information exchange over internet, simple mail transfer protocol for exchange of emails and unified payments interface for payments.