The Government has allowed further extension of up to 29th March 2023 for the applicability of Viscose Staple Fibre (Quality Control) Order, 2022. This decision was taken after a stakeholder consultation meeting held under the Chairmanship of Minister of Textiles, Piyush Goyal.
This extension will ensure that Indian manufacturers will meet their prior committed schedule.
To check the import of low-quality viscose staple fibre (VSF), the Ministry of Textiles (MoT) notified the VSF QCO 2022 on 29th December 2022 which was to be implemented within one month of notification.
However, looking at the import dependency of India on VSF, especially some nominated categories, and the various procedural issues being faced by the user industry, the request to extend the deadline for the applicability of the notification was made by CITI and other industry associations. This was to ensure a smooth transition and also to make sure that the VSF orders which are already shipped are not impacted.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has been entrusted with the task of product standardisation by formulating standards for various products including textiles and clothing products.
Currently, over 1,400 standards are available for the textile industry, while BIS is in the process of revising the existing standards in consultation with the stakeholders and releasing the new draft standards for numerous products seeking comments.
MoT has taken a decision to issue the QCO for all the textiles and clothing products to protect the interests of the consumers and also curb low-quality imports and thereby protect the interests of the indigenous textiles and clothing product manufacturers. The Ministry is also in the process of issuing more than 100 QCOs for technical textile products and several QCOs have been issued for MMF textiles especially fibres and yarns including the polyester staple fibre and viscose staple fibre.
T. Rajkumar, Chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) thanked the Minister for this initiative and also requested for advising BIS to complete the registration process of the important VSF suppliers at the earliest to avoid any disruption of the supply chain of the VSF.
On behalf of the textile industry, he assured to the Government that the industry, in the capacity of manufacturer and importer (of raw materials), will ensure complete compliance with the prescribed Quality Control Standards.
Ravi Sam, Chairman, SIMA stated that India is importing Viscose Rayon Staple Fibre from over 20 countries and the industry had imported 60.76 million kgs during April 2021 to March 2022 and 77.07 million kgs during April to November 2022.
He pointed out that adequate time is required for BIS and the VSF manufacturing companies in different countries to complete the formalities and issue the BIS certification.
“The QCO time extension has enabled these manufacturers to get the imports without any difficulties that might land the country till March,” he said.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
