New Delhi: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on Monday postponed enforcement of its newly amended standards for handwoven cotton muslin and handwoven cotton blend sarees to May 2026, offering much-needed relief to weavers who have faced steep costs due to stricter fiber rules, new testing methods and new certification requirements. A similar reprieve was also granted to the raw sugar sector. These standards were previously set for enforcement on November 3, 2025.
The relaxation of norms came on the recommendation of the Niti Aayog committee, headed by former cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, which favored relaxation of quality control orders (QCOs). These mandatory compliance standards, while trying to improve quality, increase input costs, limit resources and load testing capacity for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
QCOs are government mandates that require products to meet BIS standards before being manufactured, imported or sold. They started with consumer goods and later expanded to petrochemicals, polymers, plastics, chemicals, machinery, electrical equipment and other industrial inputs. The regime grew rapidly after 2014, surpassing 700 products by 2025, before the government began to push back the dates and release several QCOs from mid-2024.
Through its latest announcement, by allowing the previous specifications to remain in place until May 2026, BIS has effectively postponed the costs and disruption that would come from immediate enforcement. This will benefit handloom clusters in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Telangana and will also give sugar mills time to exhaust their old stocks without any risk of rejection. Sugar mills in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka will also gain.
Key things
- The enforcement of stringent BIS Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for handwoven sarees and raw sugar has been postponed till May 2026, offering a reprieve of one-and-a-half years.
- The delay provides immediate relief to weavers and MSMEs by postponing high costs associated with fresh testing, stricter fiber rules and certification requirements.
- The government is moving to a slow-motion, calibrated approach to mandatory standards, delaying deadlines and avoiding problems in production after aggressive QCO rollout.
- Manufacturers can continue to use existing stock and test setups, avoiding costly retooling and supply chain disruptions in the textile and sugar industries.
- Industry experts say compliance is unviable due to high labor costs and suggest that the government strongly encourage or phase out these obligations for the handloom sector.
- The release has political implications, benefiting large handloom groupings in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, which face high-profile assembly elections in 2026.
The move comes at a time when domestic manufacturers and their trading partners have expressed concern over the aggressive rollout of QCOs in India. With several now withdrawn and timelines loosened for others, the government appears to be taking a calibrated approach, pushing ahead with its standards reform agenda while slowing enforcement to avoid production bottlenecks and cost escalation, experts said.
Export to multiple countries
India exports handloom products to several countries, with the US at the top with shipments worth US$39.18 million in FY25, followed by the UAE at US$21.33 million, the Netherlands at US$8.72 million, France at US$7.82 million, the UK at US$7.76 million and Spain at US$6.57 million. The country’s total handloom exports were worth $192 million in FY25.
Industry representatives say the ground reality relaxation factors facing the country’s textile and handloom clusters, where rising labor costs, global price pressures and a shift to mechanized production have made compliant operations increasingly unviable.
“It is the need of the day. The entire ecosystem is no longer conducive to handloom operations as labor costs are very high and weavers are unable to bring that level of competitiveness to their products,” said Raja M. Shanmugam, former president of Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA).
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“Given this reality, they are forced to rely on support looms as well. Hence, these commitments on handlooms and their compliance should be phased out, allowing operators to gradually shift to power looms whenever necessary,” Shanmugam told Mint. “If the government wants to preserve handloom manufacturing, it needs to strongly incentivize the sector and build a strong brand around it. Imposing duties alone will not help them survive in today’s competitive environment.”
“The impact of this relaxation is quite clear,” said Vinod Kumar, president of the India SME Forum. “First, it immediately reduces costs as manufacturers can continue to use their existing stock, legacy designs and current test setups without rushing into expensive compliance upgrades. Second, it helps avoid supply disruptions, particularly in the textile sector, where even small specification changes can force rebuilding and new rounds of certification. And third, it shows that the government is consciously easing pressure in areas where QCOs have been introduced but are now too demanding to import, to limit current supplies, he said.
Attention to the loom vote bank?
While the timing of the easing is in line with the centre’s broader economic strategy, particularly in terms of raising US tariffs and increasing pressure on the textile value chain, it also signals a political calculation, experts said.
The expansion for handloom cotton muslin and handloom cotton blend sarees comes just as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — key states with large handloom clusters — head for the 2026 assembly elections, adding economic as well as political weight to the decision, a section of political observers said.
West Bengal last went to polls in March 2021, while Tamil Nadu held assembly elections in April 2021. So both high-stakes states are expected to vote next year, well before the extended compliance deadline expires.
In recent state elections, including Bihar, the women’s bank has played a key role. The handloom sector is considered a key driver of women’s empowerment, with more than 70% of all weavers and allied workers being women, according to a government statement dated August 5, 2025. West Bengal has seven active handloom clusters and is home to more than 6 lakh weavers, the report said.
In Tamil Nadu, according to the 4th All India Census (2019–2020), the state had 2,43,575 handloom weavers and allied workers.
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According to the Election Commission of India, West Bengal had 7.34 million voters in 2021, while Tamil Nadu had 6.28 million voters.
Arvind Mohan, a former policy researcher at Lokniti, a research program of the Delhi-based Center for the Study of Developing Societies, said when one looks at the numbers, it is clear why the handloom sector carries political weight.
“Any policy that eases pressure on handloom workers naturally has political implications,” Mohan said. “The handloom workforce is deeply rooted in rural constituencies, and decisions affecting their livelihoods can affect electoral outcomes. While the government may justify relaxing norms on economic grounds, such measures inevitably resonate politically in states where the sector is a large electoral bloc,” he said.
Nishant Kumar, an associate professor at the Center for Policy Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, sees a mix of economic necessity and political factors as the reasons. “There are political implications, but we have to see it from an economic point of view as well. The government has taken a more protectionist approach because of the steep US tariffs on textiles and at this point it needs to support the handloom and textile sector,” Kumar said.
“Politics is always present in policy-making, especially when decisions affect key states, and every policy choice has political implications. A decline in production will also have political implications,” he said.
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