BIS has recently granted the Etawah Swachha Bharat Mission, Management Committee, U.P, a Quality Management System (QMS) Certification licence as per IS/ISO 9001:2015. This is the first QMS Certification to be awarded to such an Organization. The Etawah Swachha Bharat Mission, Management Committee is chaired by the District Magistrate, and is engaged in conducting several awareness programmes through information, education and communication, HRD activities, and internal office management activities, all working towards making the district free from open-defecation by providing proper sanitation facilities.
What’s the Quality Management System Certification?
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is the National Standards Body of India that has been established under an Act of Parliament. The mandate of the organization is to formulate national standards for products, services and systems, and to operate a variety of conformity assessment schemes that are aimed towards protecting consumer interests.
One of the important activities of the BIS is the operation of the Management Systems Certification Scheme that certifies systems of organizations for managing their Quality, Environment, Food Safety, Occupational Health and Safety, and other sector-specific systems.
Among these schemes is the Quality Management System (QMS) which is more commonly known as the ISO 9001 System. This certification process is based on international standards, and its latest version, the ISO 9001:2015, has been adopted by India as the IS/ISO 9001:2015. Recognized globally, the IS/ISO 9001:2015 is a strategic tool that brings a structured approach within an organization. This QMS Certification provides a framework for focusing on product and customer requirements, process performance and effectiveness. The QMS certification works by helping organizations improve their overall performance, and to come up with sustainable development initiatives.
Coalescing with the Swachha Bharat Mission
The Swachha Bharat Mission was announced on the 2nd of October, 2014, by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. It is a nation-wide campaign that aims to clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of India cities, small towns, and rural areas by the 2nd of October, 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. One of the main objectives of the Swachha Bharat Mission is to eliminate the problem of open defecation by constructing household-owned as well as community-owned toilets, and to establish accountable mechanisms to monitor toilet use.
Initiated and managed by the Government of India, this scheme aims to build 90 million toilets in rural India, and has two sub-missions: Swachha Bharat Abhiyan (Gramin) under the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, and Swachha Bharat Abhiyan (Urban) under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Granting the QMS Certification to the Etawah Swachha Bharat Mission is a revolutionary advancement that holds a lot of potential benefits. On one hand, with the successful achievement of quality certification, the Etawah Organization can be a role model for other similar organizations that are implementing the Swachha Bharat Mission programme. On the other hand, the self-checks and performance evaluation aspects of various processes included in the quality system standard ensures governance with quality assurance. The Government of India can rest assured that the certified organization will carry out the mission objectives in spirit, and effectively and efficiently utilize the resources allotted to them.
Written By: N K Kansara, Deputy Director General (Northern Region), BIS