Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) may soon have to step up quality of products and services in order to bag private and government supply contracts. As part of the government’s ZED (zero effect, zero defect) initiative, SMEs will have to compete to get gold, silver or bronze quality certification in order to bag contracts.

Quality Council of India (QCI) Chairman, Adil Zainulbhai, told“We need to improve quality dramatically in India… A large number of MSMEs do not meet the quality bar in India…So, we have created a set of standards — gold, silver, bronze. The goal is that manufacturers, say, auto companies, tell MSMEs that if you want to supply to us, you must at least meet bronze, silver or gold standards. And, if you start saying that many government contracts will also require gold, silver or bronze standards, then we hope quality will improve. So, an MSME will at least have an incentive.”

QCI, set up jointly by the government and industry to establish and operate a national accreditation structure and promote standards, is looking at improving quality of products and services in the 1.25 million-strong MSME sector under the ‘Make in India’ mission. Admitting that ensuring quality is a “big effort” in a country of India’s size, Zainulbhai said he was optimistic that in 5-15 years things could be changed.

“What was the quality of our cars and two-wheelers 20 years ago? Today, we are exporting all over,” he said, adding that the goal of the ZED programme was to put some quality mandate in government procurement, too. “Even if we are able to improve quality in 20,000 firms, it will be a good beginning, he added.

Zainulbhai, who has spent 30 years in the private sector, was of the view that the government should rely on third party certification bodies of products and services to check corruption, as also promote self-certification and third party audit.

“A government inspector knows he will be there for 20 years and no one can remove him. A good third party certification will ensure that one can be removed if they do not do a good job,” he said, citing the example of 800,000 telephone towers in the country that he said were being certified by private sector bodies such Quality Australia and Quality Switzerland.

 

Source: Business Line

Image Courtesy: thehindubusinessline