India- Govt extends deadline for implementation of quality norms for toy industry

New Delhi, Sept 16 (KNN) The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on wednesday issued a notification, extending the date of implementation of Toys (Quality Control) Order, 2020 as 1.1.2021 in place of 1.9.2020.

As the government is focusing on promoting domestic manufacturing of toys, it came out with a quality control order and also increased import duty in February.

Quality control order on toys is one of the ways to stop flow of cheap sub-standard toys into the market.

According to notification this decision allows domestic manufacturers four months of extra time to make necessary arrangements for compliance of standards in view of difficulties arising out of COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a study, about 67 per cent of toys failed all safety and standard tests, while about 30 per cent of plastic toys failed to meet the safety standards of admissible levels of heavy metals and phthalates.

About 85 per cent of toys are imported in the country, with maximum coming from China. It is followed by Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Germany, Hongkong and the US.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has talent and ability to become a toy hub for the entire world and called upon startups to work towards realising this potential while being "vocal about local toys".

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