The CII Institute of Quality in partnership with the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) held the 3rd National Conclave for Laboratories in Pune on 28th and 29th October. The Conclave brought together the vast community of scientists and engineers engaged in managing industrial and medical laboratories in India to discuss and evolve policies and development strategies for strengthening India's lab infrastructure and support the national conformity assessment programme that is vital both to trade as well as consumer protection.
This year the SAARC secretariat, Govt. of India, supported the participation of laboratory experts from all South Asian nations to develop a better understanding on sharing of laboratory test results.
The Indian Accreditation Board NABL operates the second largest Accreditation scheme in the world having more than 2300 accredited labs. NABL has also been instrumental in the development of accreditation scheme in the SAARC nations.
The Institute of Quality of the Confederation of Indian Industry is deeply involved in the development of policy initiatives with regard to accreditation of conformity assessment schemes in India over the past 15 years and has also been disseminating the importance of accreditation among industry.
The Third conclave was held on the theme 'Challenges in managing laboratories: Delivering Competent Services'. With the renewed emphasis of Government on manufacturing and quality of Indian made products, the role of both laboratory testing and certification programmes will occupy even higher significance in the years to come. Enhancing the technical capabilities and the skills of the technical resources employed in laboratories is seen as a major step in this direction.
Dr Saurav Pal, Director of the National Chemical Laboratory, inaugurated the Conclave with the message that scientists should be deeply aware of the importance of precision in their work and the inclination to indentify and minimize errors. Even minor errors in providing laboratory results such as in medical tests could lead to disastrous consequences. Developed countries have evolved the knack of 'characterising the errors' and learning from them to improve, which is what India and other developing countries need to emulate.
Mr Anil Relia, Director, NABL informed the growth of the laboratory accreditation in India, which stands at 2,348 and added that the test results of the accredited labs are now recognised by almost all regulatory bodies and the judiciary in India. He said NABL operates a very robust and transparent accreditation process as a result of which it has always been found compliant by visiting teams from global bodies such as APLAC and IlAC.
Dr R P Singh, Secretary General, Quality Council of India, spoke on QCI's drive to evolving a mature Quality infrastructure in India, as well as in creating a demand driven culture where citizen's expect and prefer only accredited laboratories by choice.
Mr Anupam Kaul, Principal Counsellor, CII Institute of Quality reinforced CII's commitment to the quality movement in India, and its mission to support the Government's zero defect and zero effect objective, through various initiatives including supporting the accreditation boards in ensuring robust and reliable certification, inspection and testing services in the country. Mr Kaul also unveiled the Laboratory Personnel Certification Scheme shortly to be launched by CII Institute of Quality.
The Conclave sessions encompassed wide area of contemporary subjects addressing capability and competence building, technological advances in testing and calibration, accreditation schemes for Reference Material providers and Proficiency Testing providers, best practices and developments in SAARC Countries. Notable presentations included a presentation of control of infectious diseases by Dr Lalit Dar, Professor, AIIMS; developments in Nano metrology by Mr V.A.P Sarma form CMTI Bangalore; Automation in medical laboratories by Dr Vandna Lal, Executive Director, Lal Path Labs; competence development for medical laboratories by Dr Anita Borges, Director, SRL Diagnostics; importance of pre-testing of food products prior to exports by Dr SK Saxena, Director, Export Inspection Council. Mr N Venkateswaran from NABL presented the newly launched accreditation schemes for RMP and PTPs.
Pune
29 October 2014