On getting your first BSTI certificate

Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution is the authority in Bangladesh which gives certificate for standard of products. The organization started working in 1985 under Ordinance XXXVII of 1985. To launch a product in Bangladesh taking certification from BSTI is often required. There is certain procedure for obtaining BSTI certification. However, many people complain that, though there is an 8 steps procedure for getting BSTI certificate by giving a specific amount of fees but it does now work physically rather one has to pay extra money to get the certificate. Whatever, we will first look at the legal procedure:

Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI)  provides two kinds of product certification:

a. Mandatory Certification (List of mandatory certification products) where you can launch your product without a certificate from BSTI

b. Voluntary Certification where you can launch your product but a BSTI certificate gives you extra credibility benefits.

8 steps procedure for obtaining Certification of Marks (CM) license:

1. Any Company/producer intends to use, Standard mark of BSTI in relation to any article or process, shall apply to the Institution for obtaining CM license in a prescribed form. You can either apply online or off line.
2. After receiving the application along with necessary and relevant papers an inspection is being arranged and inspection report is prepared. The information, which is to collect at the time of preliminary inspection, are :
   

   • General information.
   • About raw materials.
   • Manufacturing process.
   • Packing and marking.
   • Laboratory and inspection procedure.
   • Hygienic and environmental condition at factory premises in case of food processing plant.
   • Testing facilities available as per Bangladesh Standard.
   • Storage facilities.
   • Testing personnel etc.

3. If the inspection report is found satisfactory, then samples (2 sets) are collected on random basis and those are jointly signed and sealed by the BSTI Officer and the producer.
4. The collected sample is tested in the BSTI Laboratory or any other laboratory approved by BSTI according to the relevant Bangladesh Standard (BDS)
5. If the results of the test parameters are found in conformity with the relevant BDS. a license is granted in favor of that article.
6. Normally a license is granted for a period of three years, which is being renewed, if the samples are found satisfactory after following the same procedure as has been described in sl.no. (b) (e), for a subsequent period of another three years.
7. A license is to pay fees in favor of BSTI which is known as CM fee The break up of the CM fees are as follows:A license granted in favor of any article can be canceled, withdrawn or revoked at any time if it is found that the license has violated any of the conditions specified in the license and BSTI Ordinance as well.
   • Application fee : BDT 50/= for new and BDT 25/= for renewal fee
   • License fee : BDT 200/= per year.
   • Marking Fee : BDT 0.07% of Ex. factory price for fruit items and BDT 0.10% of Ex. factory price for other items. For fruit items Min. fee BDT 1250/= to Max. BDT 10,00,000/= and for other items Min. fee BDT 1875/= to 15,00,000/=
8. A license granted in favor of any article can be canceled, withdrawn or revoked at any time if it is found that the license has violated any of the conditions specified in the license and BSTI Ordinance as well.

 Although above mentioned procedure is quite simple but no system works properly in this country. People often complain that, getting a BSTI certificate without a reference from someone powerful is like getting moon in hand. Often people have to pay extra lubrication money to get a BSTI certificate. Even sometimes start-up entrepreneurs become compelled to postpone their long desired business initiative due to regulatory burden and unnecessary hassles from various government organizations like BSTI.

Information source: http://bsti.gov.bd/