NEW DELHI: The Center has begun opening up India’s legal metrology ecosystem to private participation, allowing private laboratories to verify and certify weighing and measuring instruments to reduce delays and ease compliance for businesses.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has awarded 12 Government Approved Testing Center Certificates (GATC) to 11 private entities, marking a shift towards a structured public-private partnership model in the verification of scales and scales, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. The move follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to expand private participation across sectors.
“The aim of involving private testing laboratories is to ensure more seamless and time-bound verification and certification, reduce delays and increase access to authentic testing. This will allow government laboratories and legal metrology officials to focus more on law enforcement and handling consumer complaints while maintaining strict regulatory oversight,” said a senior government official.
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Issuing GATC certificates empowers private entities to legally verify and certify instruments used in commerce, expanding testing capacity beyond state laboratories and state departments of legal metrology. The government expects the move to reduce delays, improve compliance and allow authorities to focus more on law enforcement and consumer protection while maintaining regulatory oversight.
Under the revised framework, GATCs can now verify 18 categories of weights and measures. These include water meters, energy meters, gas meters, flow meters, breath analyzers, blood pressure meters, thermometers and vehicle speedometers, in addition to classic scales.
The certificates were unveiled on 24 December by Minister for Consumer Affairs Pralhad Joshi as part of efforts to strengthen consumer protection while reducing compliance burdens and addressing verification hurdles in the industry.
Recognition of private testing centers is governed by changes to the Legal Metrology (Government Approved Testing Center) Rules 2013, which were announced in October. The changes significantly expanded the range of instruments eligible for verification under the GATC and formally opened the door to qualified private entities to perform verification and reverification activities, a role previously dominated by government entities.
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“There will be no downtime as all private labs will have to strictly adhere to government-prescribed and stringent testing protocols. Their operations will be subject to regular audits and supervision to ensure uniformity, accuracy and credibility in the testing process,” the official said, adding that the approvals were initially granted for one year and could be extended based on performance.
All 11 private entities were authorized to act as GATC for specific instrument categories for an initial period valid until 23 December 2026.
Approved entities include FMI Ltd, Mahavir Jain and Yorker Engineering Pvt. Ltd for testing measuring tapes; V. Brindha and Abhishek Raj for scales with non-automatic operation of accuracy class III (up to 150 kg); Yadav Measurements Pvt. Ltd for gas and energy meters; Paresh Vira, Saurabh Gupta and Pietro Fiorentini DB India Pvt. Ltd for gas meters; MeterMatrix Solutions Pvt. Ltd for energy meters; and Ajay Agrawal for breathalyzers.
These entities are located in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, significantly expanding the geographical reach of authorized testing facilities.
The department has also launched a dedicated online portal to process applications from private laboratories and industries seeking GATC status. The first round of applications was closed at the end of November. The digital, time-bound process is expected to reduce discretion, speed up approvals and improve service delivery, the ministry said.
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According to the Department, the entry of private GATCs is expected to improve access to verification services, reduce processing times and reduce compliance costs for manufacturers, traders and service providers. It is also expected that more decentralized and frequent verification of consumer-facing tools such as scales, electricity meters and water meters will reduce disputes, limit the risks of short circuits and strengthen trust in everyday transactions.
Existing government facilities, including five regional reference standards laboratories and seven national testing laboratories, will continue to operate as the putative GATC, providing a nationwide backbone for legal metrology verification and ensuring continuity, standardization and oversight, even as private testing centers are involved in the system.
