BIS officials raid e-commerce giants' warehouses, seize products without ISI mark

Chennai: Two separate teams of officials from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Chennai, conducted searches at the warehouses of leading e-commerce giants at Ponneri, and Koduvalli, respectively, in Tiruvallur district, near here, and seized products lacking the BIS standard mark, the national standards body said on Thursday.

During the search at Ponneri 3,376 numbers of different products including insulated flasks, insulated food containers, metallic potable water bottles, ceiling fans, and toys worth Rs 36 lakh, without the ISI mark, were seized.

"The enforcement search and seizure operation was conducted on March 19 at the warehouses of leading e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart," an official release here said.

During the raid at Amazon's warehouse, following information of a suspected violation of the BIS Act, 2016, the team comprising B J Gowththam, joint director, and L Dhinesh Rajagopalan, joint director, 'collected' evidence of violation of several Quality control orders related to insulated flasks, insulated food containers, metallic potable water bottles, ceiling fans, and toys, in pursuance of Section 28 of BIS Act 2016.

"These products notified under the above Quality control orders cannot be stored/sold/offered for sale/exhibited for sale without BIS Standard Mark under a valid BIS licence," the release said.

A similar raid at Flipkart warehouse by BIS, Chennai team comprising D Jeevanandam, director, and J Sreejith Mohan J, joint director, led to the confiscation of 286 numbers of baby diapers, 36 boxes of Casserole / insulated hotpots, 26 numbers of stainless steel water bottles, and 10 numbers of insulated steel bottle products without the ISI mark.

Head of Chennai Branch, G Bhavani stated that action would be initiated by the BIS against offenders under the BIS Act, 2016.

"The offence is punishable with imprisonment of up to two years or a fine not less than Rs 2,00,000, but may extend up to ten times the value of goods or articles produced or sold or offered to be sold or affixed or applied with a standard mark or both as per Section 29 of BIS Act, 2016 for first contravention," she said in the release.