# EngiNewsIndia — full corpus > Frontline news for Indian engineering This file concatenates every blog and glossary page > published on enginewsindia.com, tldr and full body, for a reader > that wants the content in one fetch rather than a crawl per page. It is > generated at build time from the same MDX source the pages render from — > see llms.txt for the index. # Aluminium QCO: wrought products bind from 1 December 2026 S.O. 1319(E) of 11 March 2026 came into force the day it was gazetted, but the dates a product must carry the Standard Mark are set per entry in its Table. Seven aluminium entries bind with immediate effect. Ten wrought general engineering and electrical entries, including IS 733 bars and rods and IS 740 rivet stock, bind on 1 December 2026, 1 March 2027 for small units and 1 June 2027 for micro. ## What the order is The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade made S.O. 1319(E) on 11 March 2026, under section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, and the Gazette of India carried it two days later, on 13 March 2026, in Part II Section 3 sub-section (ii), issue No. 1262. Its title is the Aluminium and Aluminium Alloy Products (Quality Control) Order, 2026. It is made "in supersession of the Aluminium and Aluminium Alloy Products (Quality Control) Order, 2025, except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such supersession". Both instruments exist and the 2026 order replaced the 2025 one, so a compliance note that cites the 2025 order is citing a superseded instrument. The same pattern turned up in the [electrical appliances QCO](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026) this site reported earlier. Clause 2 carries the obligation. Goods specified in column (2) of the Table must conform to the Indian Standard in column (3) and must bear the Standard Mark under a licence from BIS, under Scheme-1 of Schedule-II to the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018. Clause 3 makes BIS the certifying and enforcing authority. Clause 4 makes contravention punishable under the BIS Act, 2016. ## The order bound in March, the Table sets the deadlines Clause 1(2) reads: "It shall come into force on the date of its publication in the official Gazette." The order has therefore been in force since 13 March 2026. That is a different question from when a given product has to carry the mark, which the Table sets entry by entry in columns (5), (6) and (7). Reading the commencement clause as the compliance date is the error the structure of these orders invites. Seven of the seventeen entries read "With immediate effect" in all three columns: the irrigation tubes under IS 7092 (Part 1):1992 and (Part 2):1987, EC grade rod under IS 5484:1997, pharmaceutical packaging foil under IS 16011:2012, aluminium composite panel under IS 17682:2021, corrugated sheet under IS 1254:2007, and aerospace forging stock under IS 7902:2001. For those, the mark has been required since March. The other ten are the wrought general engineering and electrical grades, and they are the ones with a deadline still ahead. | S. No. | Indian Standard | Goods | |---|---|---| | 8 | IS 733:1983 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy bars, rods and sections (general engineering purposes) | | 9 | IS 734:1975 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloys, forging stock and forgings for general engineering purposes | | 10 | IS 736:1986 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy plate for general engineering purposes | | 11 | IS 737:2008 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy sheet and strip for general engineering purposes | | 12 | IS 739:1992 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy wire for general engineering purposes | | 13 | IS 740:1977 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy rivet stock for general engineering purposes | | 14 | IS 1285:2002 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloys, extruded round tube and hollow sections for general engineering purposes | | 15 | IS 2067:1975 | Wrought aluminium wire for electrical purposes | | 16 | IS 21:1992 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloys for manufacture of utensils | | 17 | IS 5082:1998 | Wrought aluminium and aluminium alloy bars, rods, tubes, sections, plates and sheets for electrical applications | All ten carry 01.12.2026 in column (5), 01.03.2027 in column (6) and 01.06.2027 in column (7). The date cells in the Table are merged across the ten rows, which is worth saying because a text extraction of a merged cell is where a wrong date enters a compliance summary. BIS's own list of upcoming Quality Control Orders carries 01 December 2026 against the same ten Indian Standards, in the same order, when it was read on 19 October 2026. That is a second statement of the general date from a different document. It is only the general date: the list prints one enforcement date per standard and no MSME tiering at all, which is why the order and not the list is the thing to read when a unit wants to know whether it has until March or June 2027. ## Who gets the later dates, and how a unit shows it The Table heads column (5) "Date of implementation in general (other than micro and small enterprises)", column (6) "Date of implementation for small enterprises", and column (7) "Date of implementation for micro enterprises". Read against those headings, a small unit has until 1 March 2027 and a micro unit until 1 June 2027, while every other enterprise has until 1 December 2026. One thing in the drafting is worth flagging, because it decides a date a reader may quote to a test house. The enabling proviso lists the two columns in the opposite order to the headings. It says that micro enterprises and small enterprises "shall conform to such Indian Standards from the date specified in the corresponding entry under columns (6) and (7) of the Table", which read strictly would hand micro units the earlier of the two dates. The column headings are explicit and sit over the date cells themselves, so they are what a supplier should work from: small in March 2027, micro in June 2027. Micro and small are defined by reference to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, so the class turns on [the MSMED Act's investment and turnover limits](/glossary/msme) and not on anything in the order. A unit claiming the later date has to be able to show which class it falls in, which in practice means [proving micro or small status with a Udyam certificate](/glossary/udyam-registration). ## Which edition of the standard to certify against The Table names IS 733:1983, IS 734:1975 and IS 740:1977 with years that are four decades old, and this is where an application goes wrong. The note under the Table settles it: "For the purposes of this Table, the latest version of Indian Standards including the amendments thereof, as notified by the Bureau of Indian Standards from time to time shall apply." The year printed beside the IS number identifies the standard. It does not fix the edition. The edition to certify against is whatever BIS currently notifies for that standard, amendments included, on the date of the application. A supplier working from the order alone, or from a secondary summary of it, would take 1983 as the IS 733 edition and put the wrong revision on a [BIS Standard Mark licence](/glossary/bis-certification) application. ## Export and research imports sit outside the order Two provisos narrow the scope, and neither appears in the secondary accounts of this order. Nothing in the order applies to goods or articles manufactured domestically for export. A unit whose aluminium output goes abroad is outside the order for that output. Nothing applies to goods imported up to two hundred kilograms a year for research and development by manufacturers of aluminium products, on two conditions: the imported goods must not be sold commercially and must be disposed of as scrap, and the manufacturer must keep a year wise record of them and furnish it to the Central Government on its own letterhead, duly signed by its authorised signatory. ## What this changes for a shop in Rajkot or Ahmedabad The ten wrought entries are the aluminium a general engineering shop in western India buys and sells by the tonne: bars, rods and sections under IS 733, plate under IS 736, sheet and strip under IS 737, wire under IS 739, rivet stock under IS 740 for the fastener trade, and extruded round tube and hollow sections under IS 1285. Two more, IS 2067 and IS 5082, are the electrical grades that feed switchgear and conductor work, which is why this story also sits on the [electrical and electronics compliance beat](/news/electrical-electronics-solar). From 1 December 2026, a non-MSME maker of any of those goods needs a Scheme-I licence to apply the Standard Mark, and a buyer with a quality clause in its purchase order will start asking for the licence number rather than a test report. A small or micro unit has three or six further months, and that extra runway is the reason to settle the Udyam classification before the date that applies to it. The interval this order leaves is short for a licence obtained from a standing start. A unit that has applied and is waiting is in a different position from one that has not applied, and this order carries no transition clause of the kind DPIIT wrote into [the Scheme II transition route](/news/transition-facilitation-qco-order-2026-scheme-ii) for ten other Quality Control Orders, nor any shipped on board cut off of the kind in the [stainless steel QCO exemption](/news/stainless-steel-qco-exemption-26-october-2026). What it does carry is the export proviso and the research imports proviso, and those are the two doors a supplier should check before assuming it is caught. EngiNewsIndia will report any amendment to this order when it is gazetted, with its S.O. number, alongside the rest of the [Quality Control Order reporting from India](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/aluminium-qco-wrought-products-december-2026 --- # Battery plants could add 2 million jobs by FY30, Adecco says Adecco India estimates India's battery industry will create 1.5 to 2 million jobs by FY30, about 25% direct and 75% indirect, with hiring growing 25 to 30% a year. Karnataka (24%), Gujarat (22%), Telangana (18%) and Haryana (14%) take most of the hiring; cell manufacturing and components take 42 to 45% of the jobs. ## What happened Adecco India, the staffing firm, said on 7 September that India's battery industry could create 1.5 to 2 million jobs by FY30 as the country moves from importing and assembling lithium-ion cells to making them. About 25% of those jobs would be direct and 75% indirect; hiring would grow 25 to 30% a year, [Outlook Business reported](https://www.outlookbusiness.com/news/indias-battery-industry-set-to-generate-up-to-2-mn-jobs-by-fy30-adecco-india). The estimate rests on inputs from Adecco's thirty-odd clients in the sector, according to Deepesh Gupta, its director and head of general staffing. Cell manufacturing and battery components would account for 42 to 45% of the hiring; recycling would grow 25 to 30%. Specialised battery engineers could earn 35 to 40% more than equivalent roles in conventional manufacturing and electronics. By state, Adecco puts Karnataka at 24% of hiring, Gujarat at 22%, Telangana at 18% and Haryana at 14%, with tier-two and tier-three industrial corridors taking about 30% of the openings. Installed cell capacity is around 60 GWh and expected to approach 100 GWh by the end of 2026. The government's production-linked incentive for advanced chemistry cells commits ₹18,100 crore for 50 GWh of capacity. ## Why it matters Three of every four jobs in this forecast are indirect: the tool room, the fixture maker, the electrical contractor, the logistics firm and the recycler around the cell plant, not the plant itself. Gujarat's 22% share puts it second in the country, and its share is built on plants that need exactly the trades exhibiting at a machine-tools show. For a shop owner the number to watch is not two million; it is the capacity figure. Sixty gigawatt-hours becoming a hundred inside a year means plants under construction now, and plants under construction buy fabrication, material handling and installation before they buy anything else. The [PLI scheme](/glossary/pli-scheme) behind the cell plants pays the cell maker, not the supplier, so the supplier's route in is the plant's procurement, not the scheme. A supplier working the Rajasthan end of that list has one date on the EngiExpo circuit in the state: [EngiExpo Jaipur 2027](/events/engiexpo-jaipur-2027) carries that edition's dates, venue and the sectors the organiser names. ## What happens next The forecast runs to FY30, so the first test of it is the capacity figure at the end of 2026. EngiNewsIndia will track cell-plant announcements in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan as they are filed, on the [electrical, electronics and solar beat](/news/electrical-electronics-solar). The Adecco report itself has not been published as a document; the figures above are as the company stated them to the press. If a firm of your size is [registered as an MSME](/glossary/udyam-registration), the state industrial policies that sit alongside the PLI are the schemes to read next. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/battery-industry-jobs-fy30-adecco --- # CG Semi ships its first chips from the Sanand OSAT plant CG Semi, the Murugappa group joint venture with Renesas and Stars Microelectronics, began commercial production at its G1 OSAT plant in Sanand in July 2026. Peak capacity is 300 million units a year; the group is putting ₹7,600 crore into G1 and a second plant, G2, over five years. ## What happened CG Semi began commercial production at its G1 plant in Sanand, Gujarat, in July 2026, [Verdict reported on 6 July](https://www.verdict.co.uk/cg-semi-commercial-production-osat/). The plant is an [OSAT](/glossary/osat) facility: it takes finished silicon wafers from chip makers and turns them into packaged, tested chips ready to solder onto a board. CG Semi is a joint venture between CG Power and Industrial Solutions, part of the Murugappa group, Renesas Electronics of Japan and Stars Microelectronics of Thailand. The G1 plant was inaugurated in August 2025; the eleven months since went on equipment installation, process stabilisation, workforce training and customer qualification. Peak capacity is 300 million units a year. The group has committed ₹7,600 crore over five years to G1 and a second, larger plant, G2, which is under development on the same site. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw attended the first shipment. "Today, this first shipment speaks louder than any words," said Vellayan Subbiah, chairman of CG Power, in the company's statement. ## Why it matters Sanand is forty kilometres from Ahmedabad and already a vehicle-making cluster. A chip packaging plant of this size needs what a machine shop in Gujarat sells: precision fixtures, cleanroom fit-out, material handling, compressed air, power conditioning and maintenance contracts. The second plant, G2, has not yet been built, so the supplier list for it is not yet closed. For the [MSME](/glossary/msme) owner, the practical question is which of those needs a firm of your size can bid for. The plant's own statement names none of its suppliers; the first shipment is the signal, not the tender. Since this story ran, the government has notified [what the Machines and Materials pillar pays](/news/semicon-2-machines-materials-thresholds) a firm that makes semiconductor equipment or its sub-assemblies in India. ## What happens next No date has been given for G2. The company has said only that it will add capacity "upon completion". Product names and first customers were not disclosed. EngiNewsIndia will report the G2 timeline and the supplier programme when CG Semi or the Gujarat government publishes either, with the rest of the [electrical, electronics and solar](/news/electrical-electronics-solar) reporting. The next place to meet the Sanand cluster in person is the [Ahmedabad edition of EngiExpo](/events/engiexpo-ahmedabad-2026), 19 to 21 December 2026. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/cg-semi-sanand-osat-commercial-production --- # BIS mark now due on 90 electrical appliances — small and micro by 2027 From 1 October 2026 the 90 classes of appliance listed in the Safety of Household, Commercial and Similar Electrical Appliances (Quality Control) Order, 2026 must meet IS 302 (Part 1): 2024 and carry the BIS Standard Mark under a Scheme-I licence. Small enterprises have until 1 January 2027, micro enterprises until 1 April 2027. About a fifth of the list is commercial catering equipment. ## The date has passed The Safety of Household, Commercial and Similar Electrical Appliances (Quality Control) Order, 2026 came into force on 1 October 2026, and it was not deferred: BIS's list of Quality Control Orders due for implementation, re-read on 26 October 2026, still carries 1 October 2026 against IS 302 (Part 1): 2024. The order was notified as S.O. 1739(E) on 6 April 2026 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, and it supersedes the 2025 order of the same name. Three dates still matter to a reader coming to this now. A small enterprise has until 1 January 2027 and a micro enterprise until 1 April 2027. And the six-month legacy-stock window opened on 1 October 2026, so it closes on 1 April 2027 for the makers who qualify for it. From 1 October 2026, an appliance in its table has to conform to IS 302 (Part 1): 2024, the Indian adoption of IEC 60335-1: 2020, and carry the BIS Standard Mark under a licence granted under Scheme-I of Schedule-II of the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018. Scheme-I is the [ISI mark](/glossary/bis-certification) route: a licence for a named product made at a named factory, with a factory assessment and continuing surveillance, rather than a tested self-declaration. The scope is set by voltage, not by who buys the thing. The order applies to all electrical appliances intended for household, commercial or similar application with a rated voltage not exceeding 250 V for single-phase appliances and 480 V for other appliances, and it says in terms that direct-current supplied and battery-operated appliances are included. Appliances that fall under another Quality Control Order, or that are already notified for compulsory BIS certification under another Act, are outside it. Two dates sit behind the headline one. A small enterprise as defined under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 has until 1 January 2027; a micro enterprise has until 1 April 2027. Those are columns (6) and (7) of the order's table, and they are the only relief in it that depends on what the maker is rather than what the product is. ## Why it matters on a shop floor that does not make appliances The order lists 90 classes of goods, and the word "commercial" in its title does a lot of work. Somewhere around a fifth of the list is catering equipment: commercial electric cooking ranges, ovens and hobs, doughnut fryers, griddles and griddle plates, multi-purpose cooking appliances, forced convection ovens, boiling pans, grillers and toasters, appliances for keeping food warm, bains-marie, dishwashing machines, rinsing sinks, kitchen machines and hoods. Commercial vacuum packaging appliances are on it. So are floor treatment and wet scrubbing machines, electric heating tools, hand-held electric engraving tools, and furniture with electrically motorised parts. Those are made by fabrication and sheet-metal units in Rajkot, Ahmedabad and the Pune belt that would not describe themselves as appliance manufacturers and may not be reading DPIIT notifications. A firm building stainless-steel bains-marie for hotel kitchens is inside this order. So is a firm assembling battery-powered floor scrubbers. The classification question is therefore worth settling before the licence question. The later dates apply to a small or micro enterprise as the MSMED Act defines it, which in practice means the classification on the [Udyam registration](/glossary/udyam-registration) certificate. A unit that has grown past the [MSME thresholds](/glossary/msme) without updating its registration, or that never registered, is working to 1 October rather than to January or April. The difference is three months for a small unit and six for a micro one. For anyone who does need a licence, the sequence is the ordinary Scheme-I one: testing against IS 302 (Part 1): 2024, an application naming the product and the factory, a factory assessment, then the mark. [BIS certification](/glossary/bis-certification) under Scheme-I is a per-product, per-factory licence, so a maker with four appliance lines in two sheds is not making one application. ## What the order does and does not give There is a legacy-stock provision, and it is narrower than it first reads. Goods made in India or imported before the implementation date may be sold, displayed or offered for sale for six months after that date, but only by a manufacturer who is already certified by BIS or who has applied to BIS for certification, and only after a declaration to the Bureau. A maker who has neither certificate nor application on 1 October does not get the six months. Exports are exempt: nothing in the order applies to goods manufactured domestically for export. Research imports are capped rather than exempt, at 200 units a year for makers of household and similar electrical appliances, which may not be sold commercially and may be scrapped, with a year-wise record to be furnished if the Central Government asks. ## The one alternative route, and its gate Since 25 June 2026 there has been a second order in play, and it names this one. The Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026, notified as S.O. 3417(E), lists the appliances order at entry 10 of its Schedule and allows goods under the ten orders it lists to be permitted the Standard Mark under a Scheme II licence instead of the Scheme-I one. Scheme II is the registration route: laboratory testing and a declaration of conformity, with no factory assessment. It is narrower than that sounds. The Scheme II licence is available only to a manufacturer supplying a person who holds a specific permission from DPIIT, and clause 4(1)(a) of that order grants permission only to a person that is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013. A proprietorship, a partnership firm and an LLP are outside it. The order also moves no dates: 1 October 2026 stands for this one. The full reading is in [the Scheme II route DPIIT opened for ten Quality Control Orders](/news/transition-facilitation-qco-order-2026-scheme-ii). ## What happens next This order has already moved once. The 2025 version was notified on 19 May 2025 and was to come into force on 19 March 2026 for large and medium domestic manufacturers and for foreign manufacturers, with three extra months for small units and six for micro units. The 2026 order replaced it and reset the general date to 1 October 2026, which is a deferral of a little over six months. The department used the same tiering, three extra months for small units and six for micro, in its [aluminium QCO](/news/aluminium-qco-wrought-products-december-2026), which replaced a 2025 order of its own name in the same way. It did not move again. The commencement date is written into the order itself, so changing it takes a fresh notification in the Gazette rather than a circular, and none was published before the date. BIS's own list still carried 1 October 2026 for this entry when it was re-read on 26 October 2026, four weeks after the event. That is not the pattern everywhere. The three woven-sack orders were moved off 6 October 2026 on the day itself, to [6 November 2026 and 6 January 2027](/news/woven-sack-qcos-october-2026). A date written into an order is movable until it passes, and this one passed. EngiNewsIndia will report any amendment to this order when it is gazetted, alongside the rest of the [policy and scheme reporting](/news/policy-schemes-msme) and the [electrical, electronics and solar](/news/electrical-electronics-solar) beat. The position today is that the general date has gone, and that a micro or small unit claiming January or April has to be able to show the classification it is claiming. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026 --- # Hand tools QCO: wrenches and pliers bind 1 April 2027 S.O. 5561(E) of 9 October 2026 has been in force since the day it was gazetted, but the date a tool must carry the Standard Mark is 1 April 2027 for enterprises other than micro and small, 1 July 2027 for small units and 1 October 2027 for micro. Nine standards are covered: pipe wrenches, open-jaw, ring, adjustable and slugging spanners, chain pipe wrenches and combination side cutting pliers. ## What the order is The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade made S.O. 5561(E) on 9 October 2026 under section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, and the Gazette of India carried it the same day, in Part II Section 3 sub-section (ii), issue No. 5349. Its title is the Hand Tools (Quality Control) Order, 2026. It is made "in supersession of the Hand Tools (Quality Control) Order, 2025, except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such supersession". Both instruments exist and the 2026 order replaced the 2025 one, so a compliance note that cites the 2025 order is citing a superseded instrument. This matters more here than it usually does, because the secondary accounts of hand tools in circulation give three different instruments and three different sets of dates, some of them in 2025 and 2026. The order below is the one in the Gazette. Clause 2 carries the obligation. Goods specified in column (2) of the Table must conform to the Indian Standard in column (3) and must bear the Standard Mark under a licence from BIS, under Scheme-1 of Schedule-II to the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018. That is [a Scheme-I licence from the Bureau](/glossary/bis-certification), granted for a named product made at a named factory. Clause 3 makes BIS the certifying and enforcing authority. Clause 4 makes contravention punishable under the BIS Act, 2016. ## The order bound in October, the Table sets the deadline Clause 1(2) reads: "It shall come into force from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette." The order has therefore been in force since 9 October 2026. That is a different question from when a given tool has to carry the mark, which the Table sets in columns (5), (6) and (7). The nine standards all carry the same three dates. Counted from the 9 October 2026 order that set them, the general date is a little under six months out, the small-enterprise date not quite nine months, and the micro date close to a year. | S. No. | Indian Standard | Goods | |---|---|---| | 1 | IS 4003 (Part 1):2026 | Pipe wrenches, Part 1, general purpose | | 2 | IS 4003 (Part 2):2026 | Pipe wrenches, Part 2, general purpose | | 3 | IS 2028:2026 | Open jaw wrenches (spanners) | | 4 | IS 2029:2026 | Ring wrenches (spanners) | | 5 | IS 6149:2025 | Single ended open-jaw adjustable wrenches | | 6 | IS 4123:2024 | Chain pipe wrenches | | 7 | IS 4508:2024 | Open-ended slugging wrenches (spanners) | | 8 | IS 4509:2024 | Ring slugging wrenches (spanners) | | 9 | IS 3650:2026 | Combination side cutting pliers | Column (2) of the Table reads "Hand Tools" once, as a single merged cell spanning all nine rows, and the three date columns are merged the same way. That is worth saying because a text extraction of a merged cell is where a wrong date, or a tenth entry that does not exist, enters a compliance summary. ## Who gets 1 July and 1 October 2027 The Table heads column (5) "Date of implementation in General (other than micro and small enterprises)", column (6) "Date of implementation for small enterprises", and column (7) "Date of implementation for micro enterprises". Against those headings it carries 1 April 2027, 1 July 2027 and 1 October 2027. The enabling proviso agrees with the headings, and that is worth stating plainly because the sibling order does not. This one reads: "Provided that the small enterprises and micro enterprises, as defined under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006 (27 of 2006) shall conform to such Indian Standards from the date specified in the corresponding entry under columns (6) and (7) of the Table respectively." Small maps to column (6), micro to column (7), and the word "respectively" closes it. By contrast [the wrought aluminium order of March 2026](/news/aluminium-qco-wrought-products-december-2026) lists the two classes in the opposite order to its own column headings, which read strictly would hand micro units the earlier date. A reader who learned caution from that order can drop it here: the hand tools order is drafted the way its table reads. Which class a unit falls in turns on [how the MSMED Act defines a small enterprise](/glossary/msme) and not on anything in this order. A unit claiming July or October 2027 rather than April has to be able to show the class it falls in, which in practice means [a Udyam certificate that states it](/glossary/udyam-registration). ## What BIS's own list of upcoming orders gets wrong BIS publishes an index of Quality Control Orders notified and due for implementation. Read on 2 November 2026 it carries the nine hand tool standards at serial numbers 17 to 25, against DPIIT, and it corroborates two things: that there are nine of them, and that the general enforcement date is 1 April 2027. It differs from the order in two ways, and in both the order governs. The first is the editions. The index names IS 4003 (Part 1):1978, IS 4003 (Part 2):1986, IS 2028:2004, IS 2029:1998, IS 6149:1984, IS 4123:1982, IS 4508:1992, IS 4509:1992 and IS 3650:1981. The Table in the order names IS 4003 (Part 1):2026 and (Part 2):2026, IS 2028:2026, IS 2029:2026, IS 6149:2025, IS 4123:2024, IS 4508:2024, IS 4509:2024 and IS 3650:2026 — current revisions, not editions from the 1970s and 1980s. A supplier working from the index would prepare an application against a standard that has since been revised. The second is the tiering. The index prints one enforcement date per standard and no MSME columns at all. A micro unit reading only the index would believe it had until April 2027 when the order gives it until October, and would spend money six months early; a unit the other side of the classification line would have no warning that April is its date and not a general one. The index is useful for noticing that an order exists. It is not the thing to read when a date decides a purchase order. ## What this changes for a hand-tool maker From 1 April 2027 a non-MSME maker of any of those nine goods needs a Scheme-I licence to apply the Standard Mark, and a buyer with a quality clause in its purchase order will start asking for the licence number rather than a test report. The tools in the list are not specialist instruments: pipe wrenches, open-jaw and ring spanners, adjustable wrenches, slugging spanners for flange work and combination pliers are the stock of a general hardware line, and a maker of them is often a small unit with one Indian Standard it has never been licensed against. Two doors are worth checking before assuming a unit is caught. Nothing in the order applies to goods manufactured domestically for export, so a unit whose output is an export order is outside it for that output. And a manufacturer of hand tools may import up to two hundred numbers a year for research and development, provided they are not sold commercially, are disposed of as scrap, and are recorded year by year for production to a government authority on demand. For a unit inside the order, the thing that decides whether the date is April, July or October 2027 is the MSME classification, and that is a document to settle before the date that applies to the unit. The order carries no transition clause of the kind DPIIT wrote into the Scheme II route for ten other Quality Control Orders, and no shipped-on-board cut-off of the kind in the stainless steel exemption. EngiNewsIndia will report any amendment to this order when it is gazetted, with its S.O. number, alongside the rest of [the Quality Control Order beat](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/hand-tools-qco-2026-wrenches-pliers --- # Jyoti CNC gets ECMS approval for ₹1,020.65 crore in Rajkot Jyoti CNC Automation told BSE and NSE on 17 August 2026 that MeitY has approved its ₹1,020.65 crore investment proposal for its existing Rajkot plant under the Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme. The money goes to installed capacity and to a backward-integrated facility for the electronic devices used to build CNC machines, with a capex incentive of up to 25 per cent. ## What the filing says Jyoti CNC Automation Limited, whose registered office is at G-506 Lodhika GIDC in Metoda, told BSE and the National Stock Exchange on 17 August 2026 that a capital investment proposal "aggregating to Rs. 1,020.65 Crores over next five years at company's existing manufacturing facility at Rajkot has received an approval under the Electronic Components Manufacturing Scheme" of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The letter says what the money is for. The proposal is "towards an expansion of installed capacity as well as backward integrated manufacturing facility for Electronic Devices used to build CNC Machines", and under the scheme the company "would be eligible for capex incentive up to 25% on the Investments", subject to the stipulations in the scheme and in the approval letter MeitY issued the same day. That letter, the filing adds, "will be placed before the board of directors of the company at their meeting for consideration and necessary action, if any". The intimation was made under Regulation 30 of the SEBI listing regulations read with Schedule III, and it is signed by Maulik B. Gandhi, the company secretary and compliance officer. It is reported here as a filing and nothing more. ## What ECMS is, and why a machine tool builder is in it The Electronics Components Manufacturing Scheme was notified on 8 April 2025 with an outlay of ₹22,919 crore and a tenure of six years, with an optional one-year gestation period; the Union Budget for 2026-27 raised the outlay to ₹40,000 crore. Its subject is components, sub-assemblies and the materials that go into them, rather than finished equipment. That is the part worth reading twice, because it explains why a machine tool builder appears in an electronics scheme at all. Jyoti has not applied for help with making machines. It has applied for the electronic devices that go inside them, and it proposes to make those in the plant where the machines are already built. When MeitY announced an earlier tranche on 30 March 2026, capital goods and their parts were among the approved product categories, and the ministry's secretary said at the time that opportunities "remain open, particularly in capital equipment and upstream supply chains". ## What it changes for a shop in Rajkot Nothing yet, and the filing is honest about that. No product is named, no controller or drive is named, there is no date for first output, and when the intimation went out the approval letter had not yet been put to the board. Five years is the horizon the company itself states. What it does change is the question a buyer should ask on the next quotation. Anyone who has waited for a control card knows that the specification sheet for a [CNC machine](/glossary/cnc) is not where a machine is won or lost. The spares lead time, the service network in your state and the brand of the controller your programmers already know are what decide how many days a machine stands idle, and all three follow from where the electronics are made and held. A builder that makes those parts in Metoda is answering a different question from one that imports them, and the answer is checkable: ask which items on the machine are made in Rajkot and which are not, and ask it before the order, not after a breakdown. The question does not change with the machine: lathes, [vertical machining centres](/glossary/vmc) and wire EDM machines are bought on the same three answers. This is also the second scheme this year to pay an Indian machine maker for what it buys or builds at home rather than for what it sells. The Machines and Materials pillar of Semicon 2.0 pays a semiconductor-equipment maker on the bill-of-materials value it sources domestically, and [its four investment thresholds](/news/semicon-2-machines-materials-thresholds) were notified on 31 August 2026. A firm reading either scheme for the first time should check whether it is [classed as a micro or small enterprise](/glossary/msme) before it reads the incentive tiers, because several schemes set a lower investment threshold for one. ## What happens next The board's consideration of the approval letter, any disclosure of what the backward-integrated facility will produce, and the first capacity date are the three things to watch, and the company has committed to none of them publicly. They will be reported here with the rest of the [CNC machine news from India](/news/machine-tool-automation) when Jyoti or MeitY publishes them. Rajkot's own EngiExpo edition, the 23rd, runs 21 to 24 November 2027 at the NSIC Ground, and [the Rajkot edition page](/events/engiexpo-rajkot-2027) carries the dates and the sectors on the floor. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/jyoti-cnc-ecms-approval-rajkot --- # Kia India and RTIH to build prototyping centre in Amaravati Kia India and the Ratan Tata Innovation Hub (RTIH) signed a memorandum of understanding on 2 June 2026 to set up the Advanced Prototyping and Innovation Center, APIC Labs, at RTIH's Amaravati hub. It will give hardware startups access to industry-grade prototyping tools, product validation and manufacturing infrastructure. No investment figure or opening date has been given. ## What happened Kia India and the Ratan Tata Innovation Hub (RTIH), Andhra Pradesh's state-backed innovation network, signed a memorandum of understanding on 2 June 2026 to set up the Advanced Prototyping and Innovation Center, APIC Labs, at RTIH's Amaravati hub, [APAC News Network reported](https://apacnewsnetwork.com/2026/06/kia-india-rtih-sign-mou-to-establish-innovation-centre-in-amaravati/). The centre is meant to close the gap between a working concept and a product that can be made at volume, the stage where hardware startups most often stall. It will offer industry-grade prototyping tools, product validation services and advanced manufacturing infrastructure, with a focus on artificial intelligence, robotics, electronics, embedded systems, [smart manufacturing](/glossary/industry-4-0), mobility technologies and industrial automation. The MoU was signed by Dhatri Reddy, group chief executive of RTIH, and for Kia India by Tae Hyun Kim, chief administrative officer, Jungho An, senior advisor for legal, compliance, corporate affairs, CSR and PR, and Dr T. Somasekhara Reddy, principal advisor. ## Why it matters Prototyping is the expensive middle of hardware. A [five-axis machining centre](/glossary/cnc), a coordinate measuring machine and an environmental test chamber are what a founder needs for three weeks and cannot justify buying. A shared centre with those tools changes who can afford to develop a product: the two-person automation startup in Vijayawada, and the established [MSME](/glossary/msme) in Pune that wants to validate a new fixture before tooling up. The same equipment is what the machine-tool and automation exhibitors sell from an exhibition floor — the next one within reach of a Pune MSME is [EngiExpo Pune](/events/engiexpo-pune-2026) in November 2026. A publicly backed prototyping centre is a buyer of that equipment, and its users are the next generation of buyers. The machines themselves, and the firms selling them, are the standing subject of this site's [factory automation news from India](/news/machine-tool-automation). ## What happens next The MoU gives no opening date, no investment figure and no list of equipment. RTIH's site describes the Amaravati hub but not APIC Labs's timeline. EngiNewsIndia will report the centre's opening and its access terms when RTIH or Kia India publishes them, alongside the rest of the [technology and AI in industry](/news/technology-ai) coverage. Until then the announcement is an intent, and is reported here as one. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/kia-india-rtih-apic-labs-amaravati --- # India withdrew its omnibus machinery safety order The Ministry of Heavy Industries rescinded the Machinery and Electrical Equipment Safety (Omnibus Technical Regulation) Order, 2024 by notification S.O. 239(E) dated 14 January 2026, with immediate effect. The order would have required 20 classes of machinery, metal cutting machine tools, looms, cranes, transformers and switchgear among them, to carry a BIS standard mark from 1 September 2026. ## What happened The Ministry of Heavy Industries rescinded the Machinery and Electrical Equipment Safety (Omnibus Technical Regulation) Order, 2024. The rescinding notification, S.O. 239(E), is dated 14 January 2026 and was published in the Gazette of India two days later. It runs to a single sentence: in exercise of the powers conferred by section 16 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, the Central Government, "being of the opinion that it is necessary so to do in the public interest", rescinds the 2024 order "with immediate effect". The order it removed was wide. Published as S.O. 3649(E) on 28 August 2024, it listed 20 classes of machinery and electrical equipment in its First Schedule, each identified by HS code: all types of pumps for handling liquids, compressors, centrifuges and filtering machinery, packing and labelling machinery, cranes, construction and earthmoving machinery, weaving looms, embroidery machinery, metal cutting machine tools under headings 8456 to 8461, machine tools for stone and glass, rubber and plastics machinery, gearboxes and transmission elements, generators, diesel generating sets, transformers, power semiconductor converters and switchgear above and below 1,000 volts. Assemblies, sub-assemblies and components of all of them were covered too. Each listed machine would have had to conform to IS 16819:2018, the Indian adoption of ISO 12100 on safety of machinery, together with the Type B and Type C standards listed in the order's second and third schedules. Each would have had to carry the standard mark under a licence from BIS, or a certificate of conformity where the machine is not made on a continuous basis, under Scheme X of the conformity assessment regulations, and its maker would have had to keep a technical file and register with BIS first. BIS was named as both the certifying and the enforcement authority. Goods made in India for export were exempt, as was construction equipment already covered under the motor vehicle rules. The commencement date moved once before the order was withdrawn. As published, the order was to come into force one year after publication, which meant 28 August 2025. An amendment, S.O. 2579(E) of 12 June 2025, replaced that with a fixed date of 1 September 2026, and deferred the treatment of assemblies and components to a date to be notified separately. The withdrawal came seven and a half months before that new date. ## Why it matters For a machine builder in Rajkot, Pune, Ahmedabad or Coimbatore this was the largest single piece of compliance work on the horizon. A standard mark under Scheme X is not paperwork: it means a technical file, a risk assessment to ISO 12100, conformity to the specific Type C standard for that machine class, and a BIS licence per product per factory. Firms that started early have been paying consultants for a year. That work is not wasted, and this is the part worth getting right. The Indian Standards the order pointed at still exist, and a risk assessment to IS 16819 is what a buyer's own safety audit asks for whether or not a QCO compels it. What has gone is the deadline and the marking obligation, not the engineering. Firms exporting to Europe were doing most of this already for the machinery regulation there. For importers and their Indian distributors the immediate effect is the opposite. A consignment of imported [CNC machining centres](/glossary/cnc), looms or [wire EDM machines](/glossary/edm) will not need a BIS licence on 1 September 2026, so a cost that had been priced into 2026-27 quotations has gone. Smaller buyers benefit from that and lose the assurance the mark would have carried, which is the trade-off any withdrawn QCO makes. Nothing in the withdrawal touches the product-specific orders that already exist. [BIS certification](/glossary/bis-certification) remains compulsory wherever a separate Quality Control Order says so, and the 2024 order had itself excluded anything already covered by another order under section 16. An [MSME](/glossary/msme) selling switchgear or transformers should check the order that covers its own product rather than assume this removes one. ## What happens next The notification gives no reason beyond the statutory formula, and the ministry has published no explanatory note alongside it, so why the order was withdrawn rather than deferred a second time is not on the record. A replacement, if one is planned, has not been notified. The signal to watch is whether the machine classes return in smaller, product-specific orders, which is how most Indian compulsory certification has been introduced, or whether they stay out. Nothing has returned for machine tools or looms as of 28 September 2026. The product-specific route itself is busy: a separate order covering [household and commercial electrical appliances](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026) takes effect on 1 October 2026 under IS 302 (Part 1): 2024, and it reaches commercial catering equipment made by firms that never read the omnibus order. That order is not a revival of the machinery classes, and it was first notified before this withdrawal, but it is the shape of regulation the shop floor should expect. EngiNewsIndia will report any new Quality Control Order reaching machine tools or textile machinery when it is gazetted, alongside the rest of the [policy, schemes and MSME reporting](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Until then the position is that the order is gone. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/machinery-safety-omnibus-order-withdrawn --- # Semicon 2.0: the Machines and Materials thresholds Semicon 2.0 pays 30% of capital expenditure to four kinds of unit under its Machines and Materials pillar, and the gazette notification of 31 August 2026 sets the entry price: a minimum capital investment of ₹50 crore for a semiconductor-grade materials plant, ₹100 crore for a test and characterisation facility, and ₹300 crore for equipment making or equipment R&D. ## What the notification says Semicon 2.0 was notified in the Gazette of India on 31 August 2026 and divides the scheme into six pillars and ten categories. Pillar 2, "Machines and Materials", is Category 4: the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. It is the first Indian semiconductor scheme aimed at the firms that supply a chip plant rather than at the firms that own one. The India Semiconductor Mission, the scheme's nodal agency, states the programme's fiscal outlay as ₹1,27,500 crore across the six pillars. The guidelines for implementing this pillar, along with the fabs and ATMP/OSAT pillars, followed on 16 September 2026. ## What each sub-vertical has to put up The notification lists four eligible sub-verticals under Pillar 2, each with a minimum capital investment, a minimum revenue record and the share of capital expenditure the government will pay. | Sub-vertical | Minimum capital investment | Minimum revenue, group companies included | Support from the Government of India | |---|---|---|---| | R&D facility for semiconductor equipment | ₹300 crore | ₹120 crore | 30% of capital expenditure, pari-passu | | Plant making semiconductor-grade raw materials: wafer, photomask, photoresist, substrate, chemicals, gases, materials, glass for a display fab | ₹50 crore | ₹20 crore | 30% of capital expenditure, pari-passu | | Semiconductor test and characterisation facility | ₹100 crore | ₹40 crore | 30% of capital expenditure, pari-passu | | Manufacture or assembly of equipment and refurbished equipment, sub-assemblies and components for all semiconductor fabrication and packaging plants | ₹300 crore | ₹120 crore | 30% of capital expenditure, pari-passu, plus a production-linked incentive on domestically sourced bill of materials | The revenue figure is not this year's turnover. It has to have been met in any one of the three financial years before the year the application goes in, and the revenue of group companies counts towards it. A group company, in the guidelines, is one that can exercise 26% or more of the voting rights in the other or appoint more than half its board. The applicant itself has to be a private limited company or a public limited company, so a partnership or a proprietorship cannot apply in its own name. Every applicant except a test and characterisation facility is expected to own or hold licensed technology for the unit it proposes. The government's 30% is released [pari-passu](/glossary/pari-passu), which is a condition and not a formality: the nodal agency pays its pro rata share only after the applicant has mobilised its own corresponding share into a no-lien account. ## Why ₹300 crore still matters to a ₹30 crore shop Read the table alone and the pillar looks shut to almost every engineering firm in Gujarat, Maharashtra or Rajasthan. The opening is in the fourth row. Alongside the 30% of capital expenditure, a firm making or assembling semiconductor equipment also gets a production-linked incentive calculated on the bill-of-materials value it sources from domestic manufacturers, for five years from FY 2028-29, capped at half its eligible capital expenditure. The notification lists rates of 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 per cent without stating which rate applies in which year. Domestic sourcing is defined in the guidelines, and the definition is the part worth reading twice: assemblies, sub-assemblies, parts and components manufactured within India, using either domestically sourced or imported raw materials, for use in manufacturing the finished product. The raw material may be imported. The manufacturing has to happen here. A machine shop that turns, mills or fabricates a sub-assembly, a frame or a set of fixtures for an approved equipment maker sits inside that definition even when its steel does not. The incentive is paid to the equipment maker, not to the shop, but it is paid in proportion to what the equipment maker buys in India, which is a harder commercial argument than the goodwill that usually backs a local-sourcing pitch. That is a narrower and more useful mechanism than the fourteen sector [production-linked incentive](/glossary/pli-scheme) schemes, which pay on incremental sales and say nothing about where the inputs come from. ## Apply first, spend after The sequence matters more than the percentage, and the guidelines state it twice. Capital expenditure incurred before the nodal agency acknowledges a complete application is not reimbursed. A company may begin investing after the acknowledgement date at its own risk, and that spending can be counted if the project is later approved. The nodal agency aims to issue the acknowledgement within 45 days of a complete application. What counts as capital expenditure is wider than a reader might expect: building, clean rooms, plant, machinery, equipment and associated utilities, plus tools, dies, moulds, jigs and fixtures with their parts and spares, and the packaging, freight, insurance, erection and commissioning that come with them. Associated utilities run to captive power and effluent treatment, clean rooms, air curtains, temperature and air-quality control, compressed air, water and power supply, storage and distribution for chemicals and gases, and the servers, software and ERP tied to manufacturing. Used, second-hand and refurbished machinery counts as well, provided it has at least five years of residual life when the asset is transferred. What does not count: land and its development, temporary site structures and site offices, technology transfer, interest during construction, and R&D cost. Neither does the extra cost of a longer warranty, an annual maintenance contract or consumables. ## What is not settled yet Applications go through the India Semiconductor Mission's portal, and the notification says the scheme is open for an initial three years without naming a closing date. For this pillar the Union Cabinet is the competent authority for approving fiscal support, so an approval is a Cabinet decision and not a ministry one. Project duration is fixed case by case, preferably up to six years, and the scheme is to be appraised at mid-term after three years of implementation. One caution for anyone reading secondary coverage: several figures now circulating against the Semicon 2.0 name belong to the fab pillar or to a budget provision for the mission, not to this pillar. The four thresholds above are the ones the notification sets for Machines and Materials. EngiNewsIndia will report the first approvals under this pillar when the Cabinet accords them, with the rest of the [policy and scheme reporting](/news/policy-schemes-msme). The nearest plant of the kind the pillar is written to feed is [the Sanand OSAT plant](/news/cg-semi-sanand-osat-commercial-production), which began commercial production in July 2026; what an [assembly and test plant](/glossary/osat) buys is largely what this pillar now pays an equipment maker to source in India. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/semicon-2-machines-materials-thresholds --- # Stainless steel QCO exemption ended on 26 October A Ministry of Steel order of 28 October 2026 changes the answer. The April order's bill of lading window did close on 26 October 2026, but the new order records that exemption for IS 6911, IS 5522 and IS 15997 runs till 31 March 2027 under gazette notification S.O. 3300(E), and grants a fresh exemption for 162 semi-finished IS 14650 grades to the same date. ## A new order, dated two days after the window closed The Ministry of Steel issued a further order on 28 October 2026, and it changes the answer this page gave for two weeks. It was read at source on 31 October 2026, off the ministry's own Quality Control Orders listing, which could not be reached from this machine on 27 October. The order carries the same file number as the April one, S-20011/15/2024-TECH-Part(1), and the same signature, G. Sarathy Raja, Deputy Secretary. Its subject drops a word: where April said "semi-finished and final", October says "semi-finished". The opening sentence says why, and it is the sentence that matters most to anyone holding stainless flats. The ministry "had granted QCO compliance exemption for Stainless steel products covered under Indian Standard (IS) IS 6911, IS 5522, IS 15997 till 31.03.2027 vide Gazette Notification No.S.O.3300(E) dated 20.06.2026." That is the ministry's own reading of the June gazette, and it is the thing this page said in October it could not check. The three final-product standards are exempt until 31 March 2027. The April order's bill of lading test closed on 26 October 2026 and still decides nothing beyond that order; it is not the instrument a final-product importer is relying on now. Paragraph 2 then grants something new. The ministry's reason is that IS 14650 is the "intermediate / input material for the said 03 Standards viz. IS6911:2017, IS 5522: 2014 & IS 15997:2012", and on that footing it exempts 162 grades of semi-finished stainless steel products covered under IS 14650, a standard which it notes "also covers intermediate products of both carbon steel and stainless steel". The grades are in a four-page annexure. Paragraph 3 sets the validity: "till 31st March 2027, co-terminus with the suspension of the Indian Standards for stainless steel final flat products, as notified in Para 2(b) of Gazette Notification No. S.O. 3300(E) dated 20.06.2026." The reader who should act on this is the one who concluded in the last fortnight that imported stainless flats were back under full Quality Control Order compliance. On these documents they are not, until 31 March 2027. ## What the April window still decides A bill of lading issued on 27 October or later does not carry the April exemption. That test has not moved, and paragraph 3 of the April order is still the operative sentence for anything claimed under it: a consignment that went on board on or before 26 October 2026 stays inside that order however long it spends at sea. The document and the bill of lading together are what a customs broker will be asked for. What has changed is that the April order is no longer the only thing standing between an importer and the four standards. ## What the April order says The Ministry of Steel's Technical Division issued an order on 27 April 2026, under file number S-20011/15/2024-TECH-Part(1), granting what it calls "QCO compliance exemption for Stainless steel flat (semi-finished and final) products". It runs to four paragraphs and an annexure. Paragraph 1 gives the reason and the scope in one sentence: "In pursuance to various representations received from MSMEs and after careful examination of the all aspects of the issue, the Ministry has decided to grant QCO compliance exemption for Stainless steel products covered under following Indian Standard (IS)". Four standards follow. IS 6911, stainless steel plate, sheet and strip. IS 5522, stainless steel sheets and strips for utensils. IS 15997, low nickel austenitic stainless-steel plate, sheet and strip for utensils and kitchen appliances. And IS 14650, limited to the intermediate product of stainless steel flat products only. That list is the whole of the scope. A grade outside those four standards is outside the order, and so is any stainless product that is not a flat. ## The date is the bill of lading, not the landing Paragraph 3 is the operative sentence and it is twenty-two words long: "The said exemption shall be valid for imports with Bill of lading having shipped on board date on or before 26.10.2026." Two things are worth reading slowly there. The first is that the test is the shipped on board date on the bill of lading. Not the date of the purchase order, not the date of arrival at an Indian port, not the date of customs clearance. A consignment that goes on board on 26 October 2026 is inside the exemption even if it berths in December; one that goes on board on 27 October is outside it even if it clears customs first. The second is that the order contains no provision for extending itself. Paragraph 4 records only that it issues with the approval of the Competent Authority. When the date fell, it fell for want of another order from the ministry rather than by any term of this one. ## Which standards, and which grades The annexure is the part a buyer has to work with. It is headed "List of Stainless Steel Grades w.r.t. Standards" and runs to 140 numbered rows across four columns: IS 14650:2023, IS 6911:2017, IS 15997:2012 and IS 5522:2014. The footnote reads "CSP - Corresponding product standard", so each IS 14650 designation is written against the product standard it corresponds to. Most of the 140 rows are IS 6911 plate, sheet and strip. The two utensils standards carry far fewer. Under IS 5522 the annexure names three grades, 304, 302 and 430, which are the ones a cookware or kitchenware maker sources most of the time. Under IS 15997 it names the low nickel austenitic N-series. For a sheet-metal shop in Rajkot or a utensils unit in Ahmedabad buying imported coil, those two short columns are the ones to check a proforma invoice against, because a grade that is not in them does not become exempt by being stainless. ## The June amendment, and the part nobody can check There is a second document, it is newer, and it is the one the compliance advice circulating about stainless steel mostly rests on. On 20 June 2026 the Ministry of Steel issued S.O. 3300(E), the Steel and Steel Products (Quality Control) Amendment Order, 2026, published in the Gazette of India on 22 June under CG-DL-E-22062026-273720. Unlike the April order this one is a gazette notification, made under section 16 read with section 17 and sub-section (3) of section 25 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, and it amends the Steel and Steel Products (Quality Control) Order, 2024. It does two things, in two sub-clauses. In Schedule 1, enforcement of the IS number and IS title at serial numbers 23 and 129, and the entries relating to them, "shall not be operative for a period of 3 years from date of publication in the gazette". And in Schedule 1, enforcement at serial numbers 51, 52 and 53 "shall not be operative for a period up to 31st March, 2027". Here is the problem a reader ran into immediately, and the way it was solved. The amendment identifies those five entries by serial number and never by IS number. The map from serial number to standard lives in Schedule 1 of the 2024 parent order, S.O. 3716(E) of 29 August 2024, and that schedule is still not published on the ministry's Quality Control Orders page or on its archive page. Several compliance summaries asserted that the 31 March 2027 suspension covered the utensils standard, and this page would not state it as a fact on the strength of a summary. The order of 28 October 2026 settles it, from the other direction. It does not publish Schedule 1 either. It does something better for a reader: it names the standards. The ministry writes that exemption for IS 6911, IS 5522 and IS 15997 runs till 31 March 2027 by virtue of S.O. 3300(E), and calls paragraph 2(b) of that notification the suspension of the Indian Standards for stainless steel final flat products. Paragraph 2(b) is the serial 51, 52 and 53 clause. The serial numbers and the IS numbers are now tied together by the ministry that wrote both documents, which is a stronger source than the schedule would have been read alone. ## What the April order does not do It does not name a Quality Control Order. The subject line and paragraph 1 both say "QCO compliance exemption" without identifying the order the exemption is from, which is a real difference from the notifications this site usually reports: an order like [the Scheme II route DPIIT opened for ten Quality Control Orders](/news/transition-facilitation-qco-order-2026-scheme-ii) carries an S.O. number and names its parent. This one is an administrative order on the ministry's own website with a file number. It works from the IS numbers and the grade annexure instead, which is why the annexure matters as much as the date. It also does not stand alone on that page. The ministry's Quality Control Orders listing carries several distinct exemption instruments touching stainless steel or steel imports: this order of 27 April 2026; an "Exemption of input adherence of Stainless Steel flat products" of 31 March 2026, with earlier ones of 20 November 2025 and 7 October 2025; and "QCO compliance exemption order of listed HS codes" of 8 April 2026 and 20 November 2025. Input adherence and QCO compliance are not the same relief, and a consignment is covered by the instrument whose terms it meets, not by the one that mentions stainless steel nearest the top of the page. What neither order touches is the obligation itself. Nothing here changes what [BIS certification](/glossary/bis-certification) requires of a product once a window closes, and nothing here moves a commencement date in any other Quality Control Order. ## What to do with this If your material is a final flat product under IS 6911, IS 5522 or IS 15997, the date to work to is 31 March 2027, and the document to keep is the order of 28 October 2026, which states it. Print it with the June gazette behind it. A broker or a licensing consultant still working to 26 October 2026 is working from the April order alone, and the ministry has since written down a longer date for those three standards. If your material is semi-finished, read the annexure to the October order before assuming you are covered. It runs to 162 numbered grades, each written as an IS 14650 designation against its corresponding product standard, and a grade that is not on that list does not become exempt by being stainless. This is the part worth checking against a proforma invoice line by line. If you have goods on the water claimed under the April order, that order's own test has not changed: get the bill of lading and read the shipped on board date off it. A supplier's word that the goods were "despatched in October" is not that date, and the broker will want the document. What nobody can still check is Schedule 1 of the 2024 order itself. It remains unpublished, so the serial numbers in the June gazette are readable only through what the ministry has since said about them. That is a sound source and it is not the same as the schedule. Both exemptions were granted on representations from [micro, small and medium enterprises](/glossary/msme), which is the clearest signal in either document of who was finding compliance hard. The October order repeats the April order's phrase about representations received from MSMEs word for word. It is also the second time this year that a date on these four standards has moved, which is worth holding in mind before treating 31 March 2027 as fixed: these orders have been reissued before, and the one that decides a consignment is whichever is current when it ships. Nor is a later date for a small unit a fixture of these orders. [The three woven-sack QCOs](/news/woven-sack-qcos-october-2026), now deferred to 6 November 2026 and 6 January 2027, set one date for everyone and carry no later column for a micro or small unit at all. EngiNewsIndia reads these orders at source. All three PDFs are linked below, and the rest of this beat is on the [policy, schemes and MSME page](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/stainless-steel-qco-exemption-26-october-2026 --- # Transition Facilitation Order: Scheme II for ten QCOs S.O. 3417(E) of 25 June 2026 lets goods under ten named Quality Control Orders carry the BIS Standard Mark under Scheme II instead of the Scheme I licence those orders require. The route runs through a permission DPIIT grants, and clause 4(1)(a) limits it to a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013. It moves no deadlines. ## What the order says The Transition Facilitation (Quality Control) Order, 2026 was notified as S.O. 3417(E) on 25 June 2026 by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, under section 16 read with sub-section (3) of section 25 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016. It came into force on publication. Its mechanism is one sentence in clause 3(1). Notwithstanding anything in the Quality Control Orders named in its Schedule, goods covered by those orders shall conform to the corresponding Indian Standards and "shall be permitted use of a Standard Mark under a license from Bureau of Indian Standards as per Scheme II of the Schedule II" to the Conformity Assessment Regulations of 2018, subject to the rest of the order. That is the part worth reading twice. The ten orders in the Schedule require the Scheme I licence, which is the ISI mark: a licence for a named product made at a named factory, granted after BIS assesses the factory and drawn samples, with surveillance continuing for the life of the licence. Scheme II is the registration route. The product is tested in a BIS-recognised laboratory and the manufacturer registers a declaration of conformity, with no factory assessment, which is why it is faster. Swapping one for the other is a material change in what a supplier has to do, and [BIS certification](/glossary/bis-certification) under the two schemes is not the same obligation wearing a different name. ## The Schedule, and the date that matters this week Ten orders are listed, with the date of issue and date of implementation the Schedule gives for each: toys (01.01.2021), personal protective equipment footwear (01.01.2022), air conditioners and related parts (01.10.2023), footwear made from rubber and polymeric material (01.08.2024), footwear made from leather and other materials (01.08.2024), electrical appliances for domestic water heating (01.03.2025), electrical appliances for domestic clothes washing (01.04.2025), hinges (01.07.2025), furniture (13.02.2026), and at entry 10 the Safety of Household, Commercial and Similar Electrical Appliances (Quality Control) Order, 2026, at 01.10.2026. Entry 10 is the order that takes effect tomorrow, and this site reported it on 28 September: ninety classes of goods, roughly a fifth of them commercial catering equipment, and [small and micro units get January and April](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026) rather than October. S.O. 3417(E) does not move that date. It contains no commencement provision for any order but itself, and it amends none of the ten. A reader who found this order while looking for a postponement has found something else. ## Who it is for, and who it is not for The route does not open to whoever wants it. Clause 3(2) says the Scheme II licence "shall be available only to a manufacturer for supplying to the person who has been granted specific permission under clause 4". So the licence sits with the supplier, and the permission sits with the buyer, and the supplier's licence is good only for supplying that permitted buyer. Clause 4(1) then says who can be that buyer. Permission may be granted "to a person that is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013", and on the basis of a risk assessment by an Implementation Committee. A proprietorship is not a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013. Neither is a partnership firm registered under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932, and neither is a limited liability partnership, which is incorporated under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008. That is most of the western Indian supply base. A machine shop in Rajkot trading as a proprietary concern, a sheet-metal partnership in Ahmedabad building bains-marie for hotel kitchens, an LLP assembling floor scrubbers near Pune: none of them can hold a permission under this order, whatever their turnover and whatever their compliance record. Being [classed as a micro or small enterprise](/glossary/msme) does not help here either, because the order's gate is the form of the legal entity, not its size. The relief in the appliances order that turns on size is the MSMED classification on the [Udyam registration](/glossary/udyam-registration) certificate, and that is a different provision in a different order. A firm in that position can still be on the other side of the transaction. A proprietorship holding a Scheme II licence, the registration route the trade calls the [Compulsory Registration Scheme](/glossary/bis-certification), may supply a permitted company under clause 3(2), and the order puts no entity condition on the manufacturer. What it cannot do is use the route for its own compliance. ## What the Committee weighs Clause 4(4) lists what the Implementation Committee assesses: technical capability; demonstrated experience; how quality assurance is maintained across the supply chain, including control over design and manufacturing; the history of conduct and compliance integrity; and a commitment to establish supply chain capabilities in India for the goods concerned by promoting technological adoption or advancement, design capability, or research and development. Alternatively, compliance with the relevant Quality Control Order for a continuous period of three years without default. The Committee may ask for documents, declarations, certifications, undertakings and independent assessments, and may interact with the applicant. Permission carries conditions, and clause 4(6) lets the Central Government suspend, modify or withdraw it for breach of conditions, misrepresentation of material facts, or a product that fails to conform, after an opportunity to be heard. BIS carries out market surveillance on goods moving under the route, under clause 3(4). Two clocks run. Applications are accepted within twenty-four months of commencement, which puts the window at 25 June 2028 on the face of clause 5(1). The order itself stays in force for five years from commencement and then stands rescinded unless extended by notification, though a permission already granted survives the rescission for the period it specifies. The application process, documentation and entitlements are to be set out in guidelines DPIIT will publish on its own website; those guidelines were not on dpiit.gov.in when this was written on 30 September 2026, so the practical question of what an application looks like has no answer yet. ## What to do with this If you supply a large customer that is a company, and the product is under one of the ten orders, the customer may be able to take the Scheme II route and may ask you to register under it. That is a conversation to have before the customer has it with somebody else, because the licence has to exist on your side for the permission to be worth anything on theirs. If you are a proprietorship or a partnership working to a Quality Control Order date of your own, this order changes nothing for you, and the compliance advice circulating about it is worth reading against clause 4(1)(a) before anyone pays for it. The date in your order is still the date. The Schedule is also a closed list of ten orders, not a general relief. An order notified after it gets no Scheme II route at all: [the hand tools order of October 2026](/news/hand-tools-qco-2026-wrenches-pliers) requires the Scheme-I licence outright, and a wrench or pliers maker reading about this transition route will not find its own standard in the Schedule. EngiNewsIndia reads these notifications at source and will report the DPIIT guidelines when they appear, alongside the rest of the [policy, schemes and MSME reporting](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/transition-facilitation-qco-order-2026-scheme-ii --- # Woven-sack QCOs deferred to 6 November and 6 January The three woven-sack Quality Control Orders did not take effect on 6 October 2026. BIS now shows IS 16709 block bottom valve sacks at 6 November 2026, and IS 11652 cement sacks and IS 17399 mail sacks at 6 January 2027. A seventh amendment, reported as S.O. 5478(E), 5479(E) and 5480(E) of 6 October 2026, moved the same date again. EngiNewsIndia has not yet read those three orders at source. ## The date moved on the day it fell These three orders did not come into force on 6 October 2026. BIS's own list of Quality Control Orders due for implementation, re-read on 4 November 2026, still carries 6 November 2026 against the IS 16709 block bottom valve sacks and 6 January 2027 against the IS 11652 cement sacks and the IS 17399 mail sacks. When the same list was read for this piece on 28 September 2026 it carried 6 October 2026 for all three. What moved them is reported as a seventh amendment to each order, three notifications of 6 October 2026 numbered S.O. 5478(E) for the IS 11652 cement sacks, S.O. 5479(E) for the IS 16709 valve sacks and S.O. 5480(E) for the IS 17399 mail sacks. Those numbers come from a compliance advisory, not from the Gazette: the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals index and the e-Gazette could not be read from here on 26 October 2026, so this site has not yet put eyes on the three orders themselves. The dates are the regulator's own and can be relied on; the S.O. numbers are second-hand until that trip is made, and this piece will carry them as read when it is. The rest of this piece describes the January 2026 amendment that set the 6 October date, and the six-deferral record that made a seventh amendment the thing to expect. ## What was notified On 5 January 2026 the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals issued three orders, S.O. 51(E), S.O. 52(E) and S.O. 53(E), each of which does one thing: it replaces the commencement sub-paragraph of a woven-sack Quality Control Order made in 2023 with the words "It shall come into force on the 6th day of October, 2026". All three were published in the Gazette of India the same day and all three carry the same file number, PC-II-25014/9/2019-TECH.-CPC. The three products, with the Indian Standard each is tied to on BIS's own list of Quality Control Orders due for implementation: - HDPE and PP woven sacks for packaging 50 kg cement, to IS 11652: 2017. The parent order is S.O. 5178(E) of 6 December 2023, amended by S.O. 51(E). - PP woven, laminated, block bottom valve sacks for packaging 50 kg cement, to IS 16709: 2017. Parent order S.O. 5179(E) of 6 December 2023, amended by S.O. 52(E). - PP and HDPE laminated woven sacks for mail sorting, storage, transport and distribution, to IS 17399: 2020. Parent order S.O. 5181(E) of 6 December 2023, amended by S.O. 53(E). Each amendment order came into force on the day it was published, and each was made under section 16 read with section 17 and sub-section (3) of section 25 of the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, after consulting the Bureau. ## Five deferrals, then a date The notes appended to the three amendments set out the history, and it is the history that makes the October date the story rather than the order itself. Each of the 2023 orders had already been amended five times: on 4 June 2024, on 13 September 2024, on 6 December 2024, on 11 June 2025 and on 4 September 2025. The January 2026 notification is the sixth amendment to each, and the one that fixes 6 October 2026. Two things follow for anyone tracking this from a plant rather than from a gazette subscription. The dates a reader will find on the department's own index page are upload dates, not notification dates, and the two differ by days: the index lists the January 2026 batch under 06-01-2026 and the 2024 amendment under 17-09-2024, while the notifications themselves are dated 5 January 2026 and 13 September 2024. Cite the S.O. number and the date inside the order, not the row on the index. The other is that the 2023 batch was wider than these three, and the October date does not read across to the rest of it. The department notified five woven-sack orders on 6 December 2023, numbered S.O. 5177(E) to S.O. 5181(E). Three of them are deferred to October. The two that are not are S.O. 5177(E), covering HDPE and PP woven sacks for packaging fertilizers to IS 9755: 2021, and S.O. 5180(E), covering HDPE and PP woven sacks for packaging 25 kg of polymer materials to IS 16703: 2017. Neither appears on BIS's list of Quality Control Orders still due for implementation, which is what you would expect of an order already in force. A fertilizer-sack or polymer-sack unit should therefore check its own order rather than take comfort from October. The original five orders were each to come into force on the expiry of 180 days from publication, which for a 6 December 2023 notification runs out in early June 2024. The first amendment to all of them is dated 4 June 2024. The deferrals have been arriving at the deadline, not ahead of it, which is the pattern worth planning against. ## What it means for a sack plant A Quality Control Order does not ask for a better sack. It asks for the Standard Mark, which means a [BIS certification](/glossary/bis-certification) licence for the product made at that factory, testing against the named Indian Standard, and the surveillance that follows a licence. For a woven-sack unit running looms, lamination and stitching lines in Ahmedabad, Surat or the Rajkot belt, the work is the in-house test facility and the sampling record, not the weaving. The commercial pressure comes from the buyer rather than the regulator. Cement is bought by the tonne and packed in sacks that are specified by the cement company, and from the date that now applies to each order a cement plant cannot lawfully be supplied unmarked sacks of the two covered types. That turns a certificate into a condition of being on the approved-vendor list, and it is the smaller supplier without a licence who drops off that list first. The deferral bought weeks, not a reprieve: counted from the 6 October 2026 amendment that set them, the valve-sack date was one month out and the other two about three, and neither is long enough to obtain a Scheme-I licence from a standing start. The dates themselves are 6 November 2026 for the IS 16709 valve sacks and 6 January 2027 for the IS 11652 cement sacks and the IS 17399 mail sacks. The orders carry no transition window of the kind written into some other Quality Control Orders. A unit that has applied and is waiting is in a different position from one that has not applied, and nothing in these three orders closes that gap once a date lands. An [MSME](/glossary/msme) in this trade has no separate later date here: unlike the electrical appliances order, where [small and micro units get January and April](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026), these three orders name one date for everybody. ## What happens next The seventh amendment arrived, and it arrived on the deadline itself. That is now seven notifications in under three years, each one moving the same sub-paragraph, and the first of them to split the three orders onto two different dates rather than carrying them together. An eighth is possible on the same reasoning, and the thing to watch is whether the 6 November date for the valve sacks holds while the other two sit at 6 January. A date that has been moved seven times is a date to plan against rather than to trust, and the licence is what removes the question either way. EngiNewsIndia will report the next amendment when it is gazetted, with the S.O. number read at source, alongside the rest of the [policy, schemes and MSME reporting](/news/policy-schemes-msme). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/news/woven-sack-qcos-october-2026 --- # BIS certification: ISI mark, CRS and QCOs BIS certification is permission from the Bureau of Indian Standards to put its Standard Mark on a product, certifying that it conforms to the relevant Indian Standard. It is voluntary unless a Quality Control Order makes it compulsory. The two schemes a manufacturer meets most often are Scheme I, the ISI mark, and Scheme II, the registration scheme known as CRS. ## Who BIS is and what the mark certifies The Bureau of Indian Standards is the national standards body, constituted under the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 2016, which came into force on 12 October 2017. It is the successor to the Indian Standards Institution, which is what the ISI in the ISI mark stands for: BIS came into existence on 1 April 1987 and took over that institution's staff, assets, liabilities and functions. It writes Indian Standards, and it certifies products against them. The certification schemes themselves sit in the Bureau of Indian Standards (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018. What the mark certifies is conformity to a named Indian Standard, nothing wider. It is not a quality ranking and not an endorsement of the maker, which is why a certificate is always read together with the IS number printed beside the mark. ## How a standard becomes compulsory Most Indian Standards are voluntary. A standard becomes compulsory for a product when the Central Government issues a Quality Control Order for it. BIS describes the trigger as public interest, the protection of human, animal or plant health, the safety of the environment, the prevention of unfair trade practices and national security; the QCO then directs the mandatory use of the Standard Mark under a licence or a certificate of conformity. Two things follow that catch manufacturers out. The QCO, not BIS, is the instrument that creates the obligation, so the date to watch is the QCO's commencement date and the ministry that issued it. And because a QCO is an executive order, it can be amended, deferred or withdrawn, which is what happened to the [omnibus order on machinery safety](/news/machinery-safety-omnibus-order-withdrawn). Deferral is the common case, and it is done by substituting the commencement sub-paragraph rather than by issuing a circular, so the date only moves in the Gazette. The [three woven-sack orders of 2023](/news/woven-sack-qcos-october-2026) have had that sub-paragraph replaced seven times: the 6 October 2026 date was moved again on the day it fell, to 6 November 2026 for the IS 16709 valve sacks and 6 January 2027 for the IS 11652 cement sacks and the IS 17399 mail sacks. The [electrical appliances Quality Control Order](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026) went further and was superseded outright: a 2026 order replaced the 2025 one of the same name and reset the date to 1 October 2026. Reading the latest notification rather than the first is the whole discipline here. There is a fourth move, and it does not happen in the Gazette at all. The ministry that administers a sector can exempt goods from compliance by an administrative order on its own website, usually for a fixed window and usually after the trade has asked. The Ministry of Steel [exempted imported stainless steel flats from QCO compliance](/news/stainless-steel-qco-exemption-26-october-2026) that way, against four Indian Standards and against a shipped on board date rather than a commencement date. An exemption of that kind carries no S.O. number, so a search for the Quality Control Order will not surface it. ## The schemes, and which one applies For products under compulsory certification BIS lists four routes. **Scheme I is the ISI mark.** The manufacturer applies for a licence for a named product made at a named factory. BIS assesses the factory and its in-house testing, draws samples, and grants a licence to apply the ISI mark with the IS number and the licence number. Surveillance continues for the life of the licence. Cement, steel, electrical accessories, helmets and pressure cookers are familiar examples. **Scheme II is the Registration Scheme,** almost always called the Compulsory Registration Scheme or CRS. The product is tested in a BIS-recognised laboratory and the manufacturer registers online with a self-declaration of conformity; there is no factory assessment, which makes it quicker. The mark is the Standard Mark with a registration number rather than the ISI mark. CRS covers electronics and information technology goods notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, solar photovoltaic products notified by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and a few chemical and textile products. Since 25 June 2026 Scheme II also reaches goods under ten orders that themselves require Scheme I, by way of [the Scheme II route DPIIT opened for ten Quality Control Orders](/news/transition-facilitation-qco-order-2026-scheme-ii). That route runs through a permission DPIIT grants only to a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013, so it is not a general alternative to the ISI mark. Scheme IV grants a certificate of conformity for goods not made on a continuous basis, and Scheme X is the route written into the recent machinery and electrical equipment orders. Foreign manufacturers apply under FMCS, and an importer selling a covered product in India needs the mark whoever made it. ## What a supplier should check If you make a covered product, check the IS number your product must meet, the scheme your QCO names, the testing you will need and where it can be done, and the commencement date. That last one is often three dates rather than one: the electrical appliances order above gives most firms 1 October 2026, a small enterprise 1 January 2027 and a micro enterprise 1 April 2027, in columns (5) to (7) of its table. The [hand tools QCO](/news/hand-tools-qco-2026-wrenches-pliers) staggers the same way, at 1 April 2027, 1 July 2027 and 1 October 2027 for the nine wrench, spanner and pliers standards it covers. So which [MSME category](/glossary/msme) a firm falls in decides the date it has to meet. What proves the category is a current Udyam certificate, so a firm still holding only a [Udyog Aadhaar memorandum](/glossary/udyam-registration) has nothing to put on the claim until it re-registers. If you supply a covered product as a component, check whether the QCO reaches components, because several do. If you are buying, the number on the mark is checkable: BIS publishes its licensees and registered manufacturers, and a mark that cannot be traced to a live licence is a mark worth refusing. Solar module buyers meet this most often, since modules under the [PLI scheme](/glossary/pli-scheme) are separately subject to CRS registration and the two lists are not the same list. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/bis-certification --- # CGTMSE: the collateral-free loan guarantee CGTMSE is the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, set up by the Government of India and SIDBI. Under its Credit Guarantee Scheme a member bank lends to a micro or small enterprise without collateral or a third-party guarantee, and CGTMSE covers a set share of the loss. The ceiling rose from ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore on 1 April 2025. ## What the guarantee does A bank that lends against a mortgaged factory has security. A bank lending to a five-year-old fabrication shop with a rented shed and two machines does not, and historically it either declined or asked the promoter's family for property. CGTMSE stands in for that security. The trust, set up by the Government of India with the Small Industries Development Bank of India, guarantees a share of the lender's loss, so the bank can extend credit to a micro or small enterprise without collateral and without a third-party guarantee. The guarantee protects the lender, not the borrower. A guaranteed loan is still a loan: it is repaid on its terms, the promoter still signs, and a default still reaches the credit record. What the guarantee changes is whether the loan is made at all. ## Who and what it covers The scheme covers micro and small enterprises, which is a narrower set than the [MSME classification](/glossary/msme) as a whole, since medium enterprises sit outside it. Both new and existing units in manufacturing, trading and services are eligible, and the Ministry of MSME names first-generation entrepreneurs, women-led enterprises and units in backward districts among those it is meant to reach. Lending is done by member lending institutions, which include the scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, small finance banks and some NBFCs, not by CGTMSE itself. The extent of cover varies by the category of borrower and the size of the facility, and is set out in the scheme document rather than fixed at one number. Enhanced cover applies to several special categories, women-led enterprises among them. ## The ceiling, the fee and the recent changes The ceiling on the loan a single guarantee can cover was raised from ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore with effect from 1 April 2025, following the Union Budget for 2025-26. The annual guarantee fee structure was revised at the same time, with a 50% reduction in the standard rate, taking the lowest slab to 0.37% a year. The fee is charged on the guaranteed amount and, in practice, passed to the borrower. Two further changes are worth knowing. Under the Reserve Bank of India's Master Direction on lending to the MSME sector dated 9 February 2026, all scheduled commercial banks are required not to take collateral on loans up to ₹20 lakh to units in the micro and small sector, guarantee or no guarantee. And in districts the RBI identifies as credit deficient, CGTMSE offers a 10% discount on the annual guarantee fee and an additional 5% of guarantee coverage. ## What to ask the bank Ask whether the facility is being covered under CGTMSE, because a borrower is not always told; ask what the annual guarantee fee works out to on the sanctioned amount and who is paying it; and ask why collateral is being sought at all on a facility below the ₹20 lakh threshold the RBI direction covers. A firm without a [Udyam registration number](/glossary/udyam-registration) should get one before the application, since the class the portal certifies is what decides eligibility. Term loans for plant and machinery are the common use. A shop buying its first [machining centre](/glossary/vmc) is the borrower the scheme was designed around, and the capital subsidy its state industrial policy offers is a separate application that can run alongside. Size the facility against [what a CNC machine costs in production trim](/glossary/cnc) rather than the bare machine, because the tooling, fixtures and training that make it earn are part of the purchase and not always part of the quotation. The same arithmetic covers a tool room sizing a facility against an [EDM machine](/glossary/edm), where the wire, the filtration and the dielectric are running costs the term loan does not pay for. This site's [CNC and automation systems news from India](/news/machine-tool-automation) carries the machine-tool half of the same decision. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/cgtmse --- # CNC: computer numerical control, and what a CNC machine is CNC, computer numerical control, is the operation of a machine tool by a program rather than by hand. A CNC machine reads coded instructions, usually G-code, and moves its axes and spindle to cut a part repeatably. The common types are the CNC lathe (turning centre), the vertical and horizontal machining centres (VMC, HMC), and wire or die-sinking EDM. ## What CNC means Computer numerical control is a way of running a machine tool. Instead of an operator turning handwheels, a controller reads a program, almost always in G-code, and drives servo motors on each axis and the spindle to the positions and speeds the program calls for. The part comes out the same every time the program runs, which is the point: repeatability, and the ability to cut shapes a hand-operated machine cannot follow. ## The common types: lathe, CNC machining centre, EDM - **CNC lathe or turning centre.** The workpiece rotates; the tool moves. Shafts, bushes, flanges, anything round. - **[Vertical machining centre (VMC)](/glossary/vmc).** The spindle is vertical, the table moves in X and Y, the head in Z. The general-purpose milling machine of a job shop. - **Horizontal machining centre (HMC).** The spindle is horizontal; chips fall clear, and a pallet changer lets one part load while another cuts. Higher volume, higher price. - **[EDM](/glossary/edm).** Electrical discharge machining, wire or die-sinking, cuts hardened steel with a spark rather than a tool. Die and mould work. Five-axis machines add two rotary axes so complex surfaces can be cut in one setting; they are what a prototyping centre such as [APIC Labs in Amaravati](/news/kia-india-rtih-apic-labs-amaravati) is expected to offer. ## What to check when buying The controller brand and whether your programmers know it; spindle power and speed against the materials you cut; axis travels against your largest part; positioning accuracy and repeatability as the maker states them, and the standard they are stated to; the service network in your state; and the price of the machine with the tooling, fixtures and training that make it productive, not the bare machine. Where the controller and drives themselves are made is starting to matter to those answers: a Rajkot builder has won [approval to make the electronic devices inside its CNC machines in India](/news/jyoti-cnc-ecms-approval-rajkot) under the central electronics-components scheme. A firm buying its first CNC machine as an [MSME](/glossary/msme) should also read its state's capital-subsidy scheme before it signs. Which builders are adding capacity, appointing dealers or bringing a new control generation into the country is reported on this site's [machine tool and automation news](/news/machine-tool-automation) beat. Most of those answers are easier to settle with the machines in front of you, which is why this site keeps an [engineering expo calendar](/events): the six EngiExpo editions from November 2026 to February 2028, with the dates, the city and the venue of each. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/cnc --- # Cobot: the collaborative robot, and the 2025 rules A cobot, or collaborative robot, is an industrial robot built to work in the same space as a person without a fence around it. Since the 2025 revision of ISO 10218 the standards treat collaboration as a property of the application, not of the robot: the risk assessment covers the gripper, the workpiece and the speed too. India installed 9,120 industrial robots of all kinds in 2024. ## What makes a robot collaborative An ordinary industrial robot is fast, strong and blind, so it is put behind a fence with an interlocked gate. A collaborative robot is built to work beside a person instead: it is slower, lighter, usually rounded rather than angular, and it senses contact and stops. The gain is floor space and flexibility. The cost is cycle time and payload, which is why cobots have not replaced fenced robots in spot welding or heavy press tending. ## The four collaborative techniques The safety standards recognise four ways of making shared work safe, and a real installation often uses more than one. - **Safety-rated monitored stop.** The robot halts while a person is in the shared space and resumes when they leave, without powering down. - **Hand guiding.** The operator moves the robot by hand through a device with an enabling switch, typically to teach positions. - **Speed and separation monitoring.** Sensors track the distance between person and robot, and the robot slows as the gap closes and stops before contact is possible. - **Power and force limiting.** The robot is designed so that any contact stays below the force and pressure limits the standard sets for the part of the body it could touch. ## What changed in 2025 ISO/TS 15066, published in 2016, was the technical specification everyone cited for collaborative work. Its requirements were folded into ISO 10218-2:2025 when both parts of ISO 10218 were revised, so a single normative document now covers robot cells and collaborative work together. The revision also moved the vocabulary. The standards describe a **collaborative application**, not a collaborative robot, and the reason is practical: a power-and-force-limited arm holding a sharp deburring tool, or carrying a hot casting, is not safe merely because the arm is. Safety is a property of the whole installation, so the risk assessment has to cover the gripper, the workpiece, the speed and the layout as well as the robot. Buying a machine described as collaborative does not discharge that duty. ## What India installs India installed 9,120 industrial robots in 2024, an increase of 7% and a national record, which makes it the sixth largest installer in the world, behind Germany, Korea, the United States, Japan and China. Its operational stock reached 52,570 robots, tenth worldwide. The automotive industry took 45% of those installations, 4,070 units, of which component suppliers accounted for 2,100, up 40%, while vehicle makers installed 1,980, down 3%. Outside automotive the numbers are still small: 600 installations in plastics and chemical products, up 33%, and 420 in the metal industry, up 30%. Those two lines are the ones a job shop should read, and they say that robot adoption in Indian metalworking is early rather than absent. Cobots are a subset of all of this. The International Federation of Robotics put them at 10.5% of the 541,302 industrial robots installed worldwide in 2023, and does not break the figure out for India. ## Where a cobot earns its place on an Indian shop floor The cases that pay are the dull ones: loading and unloading a [vertical machining centre](/glossary/vmc) or a turning centre so an operator can run two machines instead of one, palletising, machine-side inspection, screwdriving and dispensing. Machine tending is the easiest of those to justify, because [CNC machines](/glossary/cnc) already signal the end of a cycle on an output the cell can read, so the cobot needs no extra sensing to know when to open the door. A cobot on a mobile base can be wheeled between machines as the order book changes, which suits a shop whose batch sizes vary more than its processes do. Two things are routinely underestimated. The gripper and the part presentation usually cost more engineering than the arm, and the risk assessment is a document somebody has to produce and keep. A cobot cell is one of the cheapest entry points into [the shop-floor data a factory can act on](/glossary/industry-4-0), because the controller already knows every cycle it ran. What Indian integrators and machine builders are installing, and what it costs, is covered in the site's [automation systems news](/news/machine-tool-automation). Electrical and automation is one of the sectors the EngiExpo organiser names on its own schedule page, so the [EngiExpo 2026 dates and venues](/events) are the shortest route to standing in front of one of these arms instead of reading about it. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/cobot --- # EDM: electrical discharge machining explained Electrical discharge machining removes metal with controlled electrical sparks between an electrode and the workpiece, both submerged in a dielectric fluid, instead of with a cutting edge. Because no tool touches the work there is no cutting force, so EDM cuts hardened steel and thin or delicate sections a milling cutter would push aside. The two common forms are wire EDM and die-sinking EDM. ## How a spark cuts metal An EDM machine puts a voltage across a small gap between an electrode and the workpiece, both sitting in a dielectric fluid. When the gap is small enough the fluid breaks down and a spark jumps, and the spark melts and vaporises a crater of metal. The fluid then flushes the debris away and reinsulates the gap, and the cycle repeats thousands of times a second. The shape is cut by the sum of those craters. Two consequences follow, and both are the reason the process exists. The workpiece has to conduct electricity, so EDM is for metals and a few conductive ceramics. And nothing touches the work, so there is no cutting force to deflect a thin wall, no tool to blunt against hardened steel, and hardness is close to irrelevant to how fast the machine cuts. ## Wire EDM and die-sinking EDM Wire EDM threads a fine brass wire through the workpiece and travels it along a programmed path while unspooling it, so a fresh surface is always in the cut. It cuts a profile straight through the part, the way a bandsaw would if a bandsaw could hold tool-room tolerances. Punches, dies, extrusion tooling and close-fitting slots are wire work. Die-sinking EDM, also called ram or sinker EDM, uses a shaped electrode, typically graphite or copper, and pushes it into the work so the cavity takes the electrode's mirror image. It makes blind cavities, sharp internal corners that no round cutter can produce, and deep ribs. The electrode itself is usually milled on a [vertical machining centre](/glossary/vmc) first, so a mould shop that owns a sinker owns a mill to feed it. A third form, small-hole or fast-hole EDM, drills the start holes wire EDM needs and the cooling holes in turbine parts. ## The recast layer, and other things to ask about Every spark melts metal, and some of it resolidifies on the surface. That recast layer, with the heat-affected zone below it, is harder and more brittle than the parent metal and carries the machine's fingerprint. Modern generators reduce it with fine finishing passes, and the drawing for a fatigue-critical part will say how much of it may remain and how it is to be removed. Cutting rate on a wire machine is quoted in square millimetres per minute of cut face, not in parts per hour, so compare quotes against your own part height. Then ask about the generator and its finishing passes, wire consumption per hour at your settings, the filtration and deionisation system, automatic wire threading and whether it rethreads at the break point, and the accuracy of the taper head if you cut drafted dies. The safety requirements for these machines, including the fire risk of hydrocarbon dielectrics and the fume extraction that goes with them, are set out in ISO 28881. ## Why an Indian tool room owns an EDM machine Die, mould and press-tool work is the core of EDM demand in India, and it clusters where the tooling is made: Rajkot, Pune, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and the NCR. A wire machine turns a tool room from one that can make a part into one that can make the tool that makes the part, which is a different customer and a longer contract. Which builders and dealers are selling into those clusters is followed in this site's [automation systems news from India](/news/machine-tool-automation). It is also the machine most often bought second-hand by a young shop, which is why the questions above about the generator and the wire path matter more than the badge. The rest of the machine vocabulary sits in the entry on [computer numerical control](/glossary/cnc), and a shop weighing the purchase against a state subsidy should first check that it is [registered as an MSME](/glossary/udyam-registration). Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/edm --- # Industry 4.0: what it means on a shop floor Industry 4.0 is the name for connecting machines, materials and people so that production decisions rest on data the factory collects by itself rather than on what somebody remembers. The term comes from a German government programme presented at Hannover Messe in 2011. India promotes it through SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0, run by the Ministry of Heavy Industries. ## Where the name comes from The phrase was coined for a German government programme presented at Hannover Messe in 2011, and the number counts industrial revolutions: steam, electricity and the assembly line, computers and numerical control, and now connected production. The counting is a piece of marketing, but the thing being counted is real enough. What is new is not that a machine has a computer in it; a [CNC machine](/glossary/cnc) has had one for fifty years. It is that the computers talk to each other and to the systems that plan the work. ## What it looks like on an Indian shop floor Stripped of the vendor deck, Industry 4.0 in a job shop is a short list of concrete things, and they are usually bought in this order. Machine data capture comes first: reading spindle state, program name, feed override and alarms straight off the controller through an open protocol such as OPC UA or MTConnect, or through a retrofitted sensor on an older machine. From that comes a real OEE figure, and the first surprise is nearly always how much of the lost time is setup rather than breakdown. Condition monitoring follows, using vibration and current signatures to schedule a spindle bearing change before it seizes. Then production scheduling and traceability, so an operator gets the right program and the right revision of the drawing and every part carries a record of which machine and which batch of material made it. Quality data goes back into the loop last, closing gauge readings back onto offsets. Nothing on that list requires a new machine. Most of it is a retrofit, which is the point that gets lost when the phrase is used to sell one. Which builders ship controllers that expose those protocols, and which suppliers are selling retrofits into the Indian clusters, is followed in this site's [machine tool news from India](/news/machine-tool-automation). ## SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0 India's public support for this sits with the Ministry of Heavy Industries, under its scheme on enhancing the competitiveness of the Indian capital goods sector. Phase I set up five experiential and demonstration facilities: the Centre for Industry 4.0 (C4i4) Lab in Pune, the IITD-AIA Foundation for Smart Manufacturing in New Delhi, I4.0 India at IISc Bengaluru, the Smart Manufacturing Demo and Development Cell at CMTI, and a set of data engineering skill centres. In Phase II, C4i4 Pune was given the job of establishing ten more centres around the country. Their remit is awareness, training and consultancy rather than grants: a manufacturer can see the technology working on a real line, send people to be trained, and get advice on a pilot. For a firm [classed as a micro or small enterprise](/glossary/msme) that is the cheapest way to find out whether a proposal is worth the money before committing to it. ## The test that separates it from a pitch Ask what number the proposed system will produce, who will look at that number, and what they will do differently when it moves. A dashboard nobody opens is an expense. A system that tells the planner on Monday which machine lost eleven hours to setup last week, and lets him do something about it, has paid for itself. The same test applies to the equipment that arrives wearing the label, from sensors on a press to a [collaborative robot](/glossary/cobot) tending a machine. The data is only worth collecting if somebody acts on it. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/industry-4-0 --- # MSME: definition, thresholds and what registration opens An MSME is a micro, small or medium enterprise as defined under the MSME Development Act, 2006, by investment in plant and machinery and by annual turnover. From 1 April 2025 the limits are: micro up to ₹2.5 crore investment and ₹10 crore turnover; small up to ₹25 crore and ₹100 crore; medium up to ₹125 crore and ₹500 crore. Registration is on the Udyam portal. ## The definition India classifies an enterprise as micro, small or medium under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006, using two figures together: investment in plant and machinery or equipment, and annual turnover. An enterprise has to sit within both limits of a class to be in it; crossing either limit moves it up. The limits were raised in the Union Budget of February 2025 and took effect on 1 April 2025: | Class | Investment in plant and machinery | Annual turnover | |---|---|---| | Micro | up to ₹2.5 crore | up to ₹10 crore | | Small | up to ₹25 crore | up to ₹100 crore | | Medium | up to ₹125 crore | up to ₹500 crore | Exports are excluded from the turnover figure, so an exporter is not pushed out of a class by what it sells abroad. ## Why the class matters The class decides which schemes a firm can use: priority-sector lending and [the credit guarantee cover](/glossary/cgtmse), the public-procurement preference for micro and small firms, delayed-payment protection under the Act, and the state industrial policies that pay capital or interest subsidies by class. It also decides who may apply for the [PLI scheme](/glossary/pli-scheme) tiers that have MSME windows. The class can also decide when a compliance obligation starts to bind. Several Quality Control Orders set a later commencement date for micro and small enterprises than for other firms, as the [aluminium QCO's tiered dates](/news/aluminium-qco-wrought-products-december-2026) do, which makes the registered class worth settling before a deadline rather than after one. ## How to be counted The classification is claimed, not awarded: a firm registers on the Udyam portal and is classified from the investment and turnover figures the portal pulls from its income-tax and GST records. The process is described under [Udyam registration](/glossary/udyam-registration). Most of the exhibitors at an industrial show, and most of the readers of this site, are micro or small by these definitions; the dates and venues of the next ones are on this site's [industrial exhibition calendar](/events). Changes to the thresholds, and to the schemes that turn on them, are reported as they are notified on this site's [MSME scheme news from India](/news/policy-schemes-msme) beat. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/msme --- # OSAT: outsourced semiconductor assembly and test OSAT stands for outsourced semiconductor assembly and test. An OSAT plant takes finished silicon wafers from a chip maker, cuts them into dies, packages each die so it can be soldered to a board, and tests the result. It is the back end of chip making; the front end is the wafer fab. ## What an OSAT plant does A chip is made in two halves. The **wafer fab** grows and etches the circuits onto a silicon wafer, a disc the size of a dinner plate carrying hundreds or thousands of identical chips. An **OSAT** plant takes that finished wafer and does everything after: it saws the wafer into individual dies, mounts each die on a substrate, connects it with wires or bumps, encases it in a package with the pins or pads a circuit board can be soldered to, and tests each packaged chip before shipping. "Outsourced" is the business model, not a technical term. Many chip designers own no factory at all and send wafers made by one contractor to be packaged by another. In India the same stage is often called **ATMP**, for assembly, testing, marking and packaging, and the two words are used interchangeably in government documents. ## Why it comes first in India Packaging plants cost a fraction of a wafer fab and can be built in two to three years, so they are the stage India has been able to start with. The India Semiconductor Mission's incentives cover OSAT and ATMP units alongside fabs. CG Semi's G1 plant in Sanand, Gujarat, which began commercial production in July 2026 with a peak capacity of 300 million units a year, is one of the first to reach output; the story of that plant is [reported here](/news/cg-semi-sanand-osat-commercial-production). ## What an OSAT plant buys Cleanroom fit-out, precision fixtures, die-handling and test equipment, compressed air and power conditioning, material handling and long-term maintenance. Most of the equipment is imported; most of the fit-out, fixtures and services are bought locally, which is where a firm [counted as an MSME](/glossary/msme) meets the plant. Semicon 2.0's Machines and Materials pillar is the scheme aimed at changing the first half of that sentence: it pays 30% of capital expenditure to firms making semiconductor equipment, materials and test facilities in India, and [the thresholds it sets](/news/semicon-2-machines-materials-thresholds) start at ₹50 crore of capital investment. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/osat --- # Pari-passu: how a scheme releases the government share Pari-passu means in step. When a scheme says it pays 30% of capital expenditure on a pari-passu basis, the government neither pays first nor pays at the end: the nodal agency releases its pro rata share after the applicant has mobilised the corresponding share into a no-lien account, and that account may be used only for eligible capital expenditure on the approved project. ## What the phrase means Pari-passu is Latin for "with equal step". In a government incentive scheme it describes the timing of the money rather than its amount. A scheme that pays 30% of capital expenditure on a pari-passu basis is not promising a 30% grant up front, and it is not promising a 30% refund once the plant runs. It is promising that each time the applicant puts in its share, the nodal agency releases the proportionate government share alongside it. The Semicon 2.0 guidelines define it as the pro rata payment released by the nodal agency after the corresponding share has been mobilised by the applicant or project company, together with its other sources of funds, into a no-lien account. ## The no-lien account The no-lien account is where both shares are deposited. Under the Semicon 2.0 guidelines the project company opens one with a scheduled commercial bank in India, and the nodal agency signs an agreement with the company and that bank covering how the fiscal support is used; where a state government also contributes, it is a party to the same agreement. The deposits in the account may be used only for eligible capital expenditure on the approved project, and the government share is released into it after the applicant share arrives. The condition applies to every instalment, starting with the first. ## Why the sequence matters for planning Two consequences follow for anyone modelling a project against a scheme like this. The first is that the applicant funds every stage before the government matches it, so the scheme reduces the total cost of the project without reducing the working capital needed to start each stage of it. A promoter still has to arrange the full tranche and wait for the match. The second is that the paperwork governs the timing. The money moves against verified expenditure: under the Semicon 2.0 guidelines the capital expenditure incurred on a project is verified by the nodal agency or a project management consultant it appoints, and a release carries the other conditions set in the approval letter and the fiscal support agreement. A firm reading a scheme's headline percentage as cash in hand at the start of construction has read the wrong thing. Both are separate from what the [PLI schemes](/glossary/pli-scheme) do. A production-linked incentive pays against sales after they happen; a pari-passu capital subsidy pays against investment as it happens. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/pari-passu --- # PLI scheme: production-linked incentives explained A production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme pays an approved manufacturer a percentage of its incremental sales of goods made in India over a base year, for a fixed number of years. The Union Cabinet approved PLI for fourteen sectors from 2020 with a combined outlay of about ₹1.97 lakh crore. The incentive goes to the approved firm, not to its suppliers. ## How a PLI scheme pays A production-linked incentive pays for output, not for investment. An approved firm receives a percentage of its **incremental sales** of goods made in India, measured against a base year, for a fixed term, typically four to six years, with the percentage usually stepping down each year. To qualify a firm must be selected under the sector's scheme, commit to a threshold of investment, and then meet each year's sales threshold; missing the threshold forfeits that year's payment. The Union Cabinet approved production-linked incentives for ten sectors on 11 November 2020, adding to the three already running, for a combined outlay the government put at about ₹1.97 lakh crore across fourteen sectors. The sectors include mobile phones and electronics, pharmaceuticals, telecom equipment, white goods, solar modules, advanced chemistry cell batteries, automobiles and auto components, speciality steel, textiles and drones. ## What it means for a supplier The incentive is paid to the approved manufacturer. A supplier to that firm receives nothing from the scheme directly; what it receives is the demand the scheme creates, and sometimes a domestic-value-addition requirement that pushes the beneficiary to buy locally. For a small firm the route into a PLI plant is that plant's procurement, not the scheme's application window. The [battery-industry hiring forecast](/news/battery-industry-jobs-fy30-adecco) reported on this site is an example: the ₹18,100 crore cell PLI pays the cell maker; the jobs and orders around it are indirect. A firm in a PLI sector that is itself an [MSME](/glossary/msme) should read the sector scheme's guidelines for an MSME investment tier; several schemes have one, with a lower investment threshold. ## One scheme that pays for buying Indian Not every production-linked incentive is paid on sales alone. Under the Machines and Materials pillar of Semicon 2.0, notified on 31 August 2026, a firm making or assembling semiconductor equipment receives a production-linked incentive calculated on the bill-of-materials value it sources from domestic manufacturers, for five years from FY 2028-29 and capped at half its eligible capital expenditure. The incentive still goes to the approved firm rather than to its suppliers, but its size moves with how much of the machine is bought in India, which is the closest thing in the schemes to a payment for local procurement. That pillar and [its four investment thresholds](/news/semicon-2-machines-materials-thresholds) are reported separately on this site. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/pli-scheme --- # Udyam registration: how an MSME gets its number Udyam registration is the Government of India's free, online registration for micro, small and medium enterprises, run by the Ministry of MSME since 1 July 2020. A firm registers with its PAN and Aadhaar; the portal pulls investment and turnover from income-tax and GST records, classifies the firm, and issues a permanent Udyam Registration Number and certificate. ## What it is Udyam registration is how a firm is officially counted as a micro, small or medium enterprise. It replaced the earlier Udyog Aadhaar memorandum on 1 July 2020 and is run by the Ministry of MSME through a single portal. It is free; the portal states that no fee is charged and that no agent is needed, a point worth knowing because paid "Udyam consultants" advertise heavily. ## How the portal classifies a firm The applicant enters the proprietor's or authorised signatory's Aadhaar and the firm's PAN. The portal then reads investment in plant and machinery from the firm's income-tax return and turnover from its GST filings, and places the firm in a class using the [MSME thresholds](/glossary/msme). A new firm with no returns self-declares for its first year. The result is a permanent Udyam Registration Number and a downloadable certificate carrying the class, the activities and the units. Classification is refreshed each year from the filed figures, so a firm that grows moves up a class without re-registering; the portal gives a transition period before the benefits of the lower class stop. ## What the certificate is for Banks ask for it for priority-sector and [credit-guarantee lending](/glossary/cgtmse); buyers ask for it to give the public-procurement preference; state departments ask for it before paying capital or interest subsidies; and a firm invoking the delayed-payment protection of the MSME Development Act cites its number. Exhibitors at industrial shows are routinely asked for it by buyers who must record supplier class; an [EngiExpo edition page](/events) is a reasonable place to have the number to hand. One more use has arrived with the recent Quality Control Orders. Where such an order sets a later date for small and micro units to start carrying the [Indian Standard Mark](/glossary/bis-certification), as the appliances order does in [giving them January and April](/news/electrical-appliances-qco-is-302-october-2026), the class on the Udyam certificate is what earns those extra months. A unit that never registered, or that has grown past its class without updating the registration, works to the headline date like anyone else. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/udyam-registration --- # VMC: what a vertical machining centre is A VMC, or vertical machining centre, is a CNC machine tool whose spindle points down at the table and which changes its own tools from a magazine. Three axes are standard: the table moves in X and Y, the spindle head in Z. ISO 10791 defines a machining centre by those two properties, several machining operations and automatic tool changing, rather than by an axis count. ## What a machining centre is ISO 10791, the standard that sets the test conditions machine builders publish accuracy figures against, describes a machining centre as a numerically controlled machine tool that can perform several machining operations, milling, boring, drilling and tapping among them, and that changes its own tools automatically from a magazine or similar store. Both halves of that matter. A machine that mills but cannot change tools is a CNC milling machine, not a machining centre; it stops for the operator at every tool. A machining centre runs a whole part in one program. ## Vertical, horizontal and five-axis In a vertical machining centre the spindle axis is vertical. The table carries the workpiece in X and Y, the head carries the tool in Z, and the operator loads the part from above. In a horizontal machining centre (HMC) the spindle is horizontal, chips fall clear of the cut instead of sitting in it, and a pallet changer lets one part be loaded while another is cut. An HMC costs more and earns it back on volume. Five-axis machines add two rotary axes so a tilted face can be cut without re-fixturing the part. The saving is not only time: every re-fixturing adds its own error, so a part with faces at angles to each other is usually more accurate cut in one setting. The rest of the vocabulary is in the entry on [computer numerical control](/glossary/cnc). For hardened tool steel and sharp internal corners the answer is not a milling machine at all but [spark erosion](/glossary/edm). ## The specifications that decide the purchase Axis travels come first, because they are the one thing no amount of programming works around: measure your largest part, add the fixture, and compare. Then spindle taper and speed, because they decide which tooling you can use and what you can cut. BT40 and its equivalents suit general steel work; BT30 spins faster for small aluminium parts; HSK and similar taper and face contact systems hold better at high speed. After that: spindle power, the tool magazine's capacity and its tool-to-tool change time, the rapid traverse rates, the positioning accuracy and repeatability as the builder states them and the standard those figures are stated to, the controller brand against what your programmers already know, and the coolant arrangement. Through-spindle coolant is worth specifying at order time and expensive to add later. ## Where a VMC sits in an Indian job shop A VMC is usually the second CNC machine a shop buys, after a turning centre, and the first that lets it quote on prismatic work rather than round parts. It is also the machine most often quoted at industrial exhibitions in the western Indian clusters, which is why buyers arrive at a show with a part drawing rather than a specification. A shop [counted as a micro or small enterprise](/glossary/msme) should price the machine, the tooling, the fixtures, the foundation and the operator training together, then read its state's capital subsidy scheme before signing. Where a VMC runs the same part for long stretches, the next step is usually not a bigger machine but automated loading, and that is where a [collaborative robot](/glossary/cobot) has started to appear on Indian shop floors. Source: https://enginewsindia.com/glossary/vmc