INDIAN SCENARIO

HOW DOES THE SCHEME WORK

The ministry of Environment and Forest has formulated two committees. These committees are : 1. A Steering Committee and 2. A Technical Committee. A steering committee as well as a technical panel consists of members having specific expertise and representatives of industry affected the scientific community, environmentalist and government advises and recommends product categories as well as evolves the detailed criteria for the award of Eco mark. The product selected and criteria defined are reviewed in the Ministry of Environment. The Ministry then notifies the criteria for the various product categories.

The BIS is the certifying agency for the scheme BIS tests the product against the criteria and certificates that the product meet the criteria and BIS issues the license for the use of the Eco-mark for the stipulated period.

Procedure for award of Eco Mark :

Step 1 : The steering committee receive proposal from the committee representing Government, Consumers or Industry on product categories which should be examined for labelling, untill now most of the proposals have come form the Government.

Step 2 : The steering committee selects the product categoies for which system will develop criteria for the award of the ecomark. This selection is done on the basis of the environmental aspects of the product as well as the environmental goal of the nation. The list of selected product categories is submitted to the technical committee.

Step 3 : The technical committee identifies the products within the category which should be examined further for labelling.

-The criteria for selected products are developed and submitted to the MoEF. The MoEF issues a gazzette notification of the draft criteria and invities comments from public. Comments have to be submitted within 60 days.

- The comments are collated and the draft criteria revised in view of the comments and sumitted to the Bureau of Indian Standards and the MoEF for releasing the media.

Step 4 : The entreprise applies to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for the use of the Ecomark.