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PIONEERING A NEW FUTURE 79
VISION
To be the world’s leading accreditation body and to enhance stakeholders’ confidence in its services.
MISSION
To strengthen the accreditation system accepted across the globe by providing high quality, value-driven services, fostering APAC/ILAC MRA, empanelling competent assessors, creating awareness among the stake holders, initiating new programmes supporting accreditation activities and pursuing organisational excellence.
OBJECTIVES
• Establish a system of accreditation/registration by the Central Government of testing facilities in the various sectors.
• Establish a calibration system through a hierarchy of primary, secondary and working standards laboratories.
• Lay down the testing and calibration procedures to be followed by the respective laboratories.
• Periodically monitor and assess the working of the testing and calibration laboratories.
• Evaluate proposals for expansion and strengthening of existing laboratories or setting up of new facilities proposed by various ministries/departments.
• Examine the present status of testing and calibration facilities in the country to identify specific areas needing new laboratories.
• Promote the development/creation of these facilities according to national needs and priorities.
• Bring about an awareness and appreciation of the integral relationship between an organized testing and calibration programme and the improvement in the quality and reliability of industrial products, effective consumer protection, and successful export promotion.
which undertakes testing, either for its own purpose or for others, will be eligible to seek accreditation. This is applicable to test houses and laboratories of the Central and State governments, public sector organizations, private groups, industrial firms and academic and research institutions.
After the 1991 economic reforms, the Government of India adopted a new policy on economic liberalization and signed the GATT treaty, eventually becoming a member of WTO. The Government
of India based on a recommendation from Inter- Ministerial Task Force (IMTF) on quality, decided that NABL should be constituted as a registered society under the Society Act of 1860. Subsequently, in 1992, the name of the programme was changed from NCTCF to National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABTCL), which was further fine-tuned to NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories).
In the year 1996, with reference to the Indian National Scheme for Quality and Conformity Assessment, Department of Industrial Development, Ministry of Industry, Government of India, has approved, ‘The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories to be set up
as a society under the Societies Registration Act. It will be fully answerable to the QCI and at the appropriate stage be brought within the fold of the society under which the QCI is set up.’
Thereafter, NABL was registered as a society
on 12 August 1998 with the objective to promote, coordinate, guide, implement and maintain an accreditation system for laboratories. NABL operated as an autonomous body under the aegis of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Calibration component of accreditation, which was earlier managed by Calibration Service Division of NPL, was transferred to the new NABL secretariat so that there would be uniformity in approach for accreditation of testing and calibration facilities in accordance with ISO/IEC Guide 58.
NABL maintains a strong relationship with NPL through (a) the signing of an MOU (May 2000) that formalized NPL’s agreement to conduct interlaboratory proficiency programmes for calibration disciplines with NABL funding and
(b) the participation of NPL scientists as NABL committee participants and assessors.