Governance
Context: Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, recently asked the Quality Council of India (QCI) to strive to bring about convergence of all the various quality and standards organizations in the country.
About Quality Council of India:
- Quality Council of India (QCI) was established as a National body for Accreditation on recommendations of Expert Mission of EU through a Cabinet decision in 1996.
- Accordingly, QCI was set up through a PPP(Public-Private partnership) model as an independent autonomous organization with the support of Government of India and the Indian Industry represented by the three premier industry associations:
- Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM),
- Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and
- Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
- QCI is a non-profit organization registered under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
- The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry was designated as the nodal point for all matters connected with quality and QCI to structure and help implementation of the Cabinet decision.
- QCI has been established to create a mechanism for independent third party assessment of products, services and processes.
Governance Structure of QCI:
The various bodies of QCI which makes Governance Structure are:
- The Governing Council (GC)
- The Governing Body (GB)
- Finance Committee (FC)
- Accreditation Boards (ABs) and Quality Promotion Board
Key Objectives:
- QCI has been established to create a mechanism for independent third party assessment of products, services and processes.
- It plays a pivotal role at the national level in propagating, adoption and adherence to quality standards in all important spheres of activities including education, healthcare, environment protection, governance, social sectors, infrastructure sector and such other areas of organized activities that have significant bearing in improving the quality of life and wellbeing of the citizens of India.
Additional Information:
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC):
- ONDC is in an early stage of formation that been incorporated as a Section 8 company in December 2021 with the Quality Council of India and Protean eGov Technologies Limited as initial promoters.
- ONDC is an initiative aiming at promoting open networks for all aspects of exchange of goods and services over digital or electronic networks.
- The foundations of ONDC are to be open protocols for all aspects in the entire chain of activities in exchange of goods and services, similar to hypertext transfer protocol for information exchange over internet, simple mail transfer protocol for exchange of emails and unified payments interface for payments.
About Food Corporation of India (FCI)
- The Food Corporation of India was setup under the Food Corporation’s Act 1964 , in order to fulfil following objectives of the Food Policy:
- Effective price support operations for safeguarding the interests of the farmers.
- Distribution of foodgrains throughout the country for public distribution system.
- Maintaining satisfactory level of operational and buffer stocks of foodgrains to ensure National Food Security
- Since its inception, FCI has played a significant role in India’s success in transforming the crisis management oriented food security into a stable security system.
Objectives of FCI:
In its 50 years of service to the nation, FCI has played a significant role in India’s success in transforming the crisis management oriented food security into a stable security system. FCI’s Objectives are:
- To provide farmers remunerative prices
- To make food grains available at reasonable prices, particularly to vulnerable section of the society
- To maintain buffer stocks as measure of Food Security
- To intervene in market for price stabilization
Source: PIB
