India To Use AI For Machine-Readable Standards: Consumer Affairs Ministry
New Delhi : The Ministry of Consumer Affairs plans to develop machine-readable, SMART standards that use artificial intelligence tools to reduce the compliance burden on the industry, a senior official said on Thursday. Machine-readable standards translate regulatory requirements into structured digital rules that computer systems can directly process, enabling automatic compliance verification without manual intervention.
SMART (Standard Machine Accessible, Readable and Transferable) formats go one step further by being dynamic, constantly updated and integrated into software and production lifecycles.
Addressing an event organized by FICCI here, Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare said that the department is looking at ways to leverage emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, to modernize the country’s standards ecosystem.
“We also understand that new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, that are emerging at a rapid pace can create a lot of disruption and create more challenges. But we need to understand how to use this to our advantage,” he said.
Khare said India is at a “transformative moment” in its economic journey and quality will play a central role in achieving the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision.
He also said that the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has transformed from a regulator to a facilitator, with the government promoting private sector testing infrastructure to support industrial expansion while maintaining consumer confidence.
The secretary called on the industry to actively participate in setting standards and said the government was in the process of replacing outdated testing methods with faster and more accurate processes.
“Quality is not only a path to development, but also a destination in itself,” he added.
