State accreditation body ACCAB under the CCI scanner

DELHI: The anti trust regulator is set to probe the glaring vacuum in private participation among quality certification firms in India with the government run Quality Council of India being the sole accreditation body in the country.

Accreditation Commission for Conformity Assessment Bodies ( ACCAB), an international independent firm, has filed a case with the Competition Commission of India after it failed to get government recognition to commence its operations in the country.

"On the face of it, the lack of players in this market is concerning. We have initiated a preliminary investigation after we received a complaint and have written to the Quality Council of India as well as the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB)," a CCI official explained.

“We will be investigating the case under section 4,” he further said.

Sections 4 of the Competition Act relates abuse of dominant position by an individual or firm and looks into whether an enterprise directly or indirectly, imposes unfair or discriminatory condition in purchase or sale of goods or service.

“We have filed a complaint with the regulator,” confirmed Dilip Deshmukh, CEO of ACCAB, refusing to further divulge any details.

QCI is responsible for promoting quality of goods in services in manufacturing, health, education among others and helps maintain standardization in international trade

“We have replied to the commission stating that we have no objection to anyone setting up a accreditation body. Our mandate is not to recognize other private bodies, that lie with the ministry,” B. Venkatraman, CEO of NABCB elaborated.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the commerce and Industry ministry is the nodal agency under which QCI operates.

“NABCB doesn’t need to shy away from competition as we are anyway competing with more than a dozen foreign accreditation bodies functional in the country today such as United Kingdom Accreditation Service, Joint Accreditation System of Australia & New Zealand among others,” Venkatraman added.