Govt defers quality compliance deadline for handloom, raw sugar to May

New Delhi: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on Monday pushed back enforcement of its newly-amended standards for handloom cotton muslin and handloom cotton mix sarees to May 2026, offering much-needed relief to weavers who faced steep costs from stricter fibre rules, new testing methods and fresh certification requirements. A similar reprieve was also given to the raw sugar sector. These norms were earlier set for enforcement on 3 November 2025.

The relaxation in norms come following the recommendations of a Niti Aayog committee, led by former cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, that favoured relaxing quality control orders (QCOs). These mandatory compliance norms, while looking to improve quality, raise input cost, limit sourcing and strain testing capacity for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

QCOs are government mandates that require products to meet BIS standards before manufacture, import or sale. They started with consumer goods and later expanded to petrochemicals, polymers, plastics, chemicals, machinery, electrical equipment and other industrial inputs. The regime grew rapidly after 2014, crossing 700 products by 2025, before the government began deferring deadlines and rolling back several QCOs mid-2024 onwards.

Through its latest notification, by allowing the previous specifications to remain valid until May 2026, the BIS has effectively postponed the cost and disruption that would have come from immediate enforcement. This will benefit handloom clusters in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, and it also gives sugar mills time to exhaust their old stock without any risk of rejection. Sugar mills in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka also stand to gain.

The move comes at a time when domestic manufacturers and their trade partners had raised concern about India’s aggressive rollout of QCOs. With several of them now withdrawn and timelines relaxed for others, the government appears to be taking a calibrated approach, continuing with its standards-reform agenda while slowing its enforcement to avoid production bottlenecks and cost escalation experts said.

Exports to multiple countries

India exports handloom products to several countries, with the US ranking first with shipments worth $39.18 million in FY25, followed by the United Arab Emirates at $21.33 million, the Netherlands at $8.72 million, France at $7.82 million, the UK at $7.76 million and Spain at $6.57 million. The country's total handloom exports were worth $192 million in FY25.

Industry representatives say the relaxation factors in the ground reality faced by the country’s textile and handloom clusters, where rising labour costs, global price pressures and the shift toward mechanised production have made compliance-heavy operations increasingly unviable.

“It is the need of the hour. The entire ecosystem is not conducive for handloom operations anymore, because labour costs are very high and weavers are unable to bring that level of competitiveness into their products,” said Raja M. Shanmugam former president of Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA).

“Given this reality, they are compelled to depend on supportive powerlooms as well. These handloom obligations and compliances should, therefore, be phased out, allowing operators to gradually shift towards powerlooms wherever necessary," Shanmugam told Mint. "If the government wants to retain handloom production, it must heavily incentivize the sector and build a strong brand around it. Imposing obligations alone, in today’s competitive environment, will not help them survive.”

“The impact of this relaxation is quite clear,” said Vinod Kumar, president of India SME Forum. “First, it immediately reduces costs because manufacturers can continue using their existing stock, older designs and current testing setups without rushing into expensive compliance upgrades. Second, it helps avoid supply disruptions, especially in the textile sector, where even minor specification changes can force retooling and fresh rounds of certification. And third, it shows that the government is consciously easing pressure in areas where QCOs were introduced to curb low-quality imports but have now become too demanding under the current supply-chain realities,” he said.

Eye on handloom weaver votebank?

While the timing of the relaxation aligns with the Centre’s broader economic strategy, especially as it navigates increased US tariffs and growing pressure on the textile value chain, it also signals political calculation, experts said.

The extension for handloom cotton muslin and handloom cotton mix sarees arrives just as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu—key states with large handloom clusters—head into Assembly elections in 2026, lending both economic and political weight to the decision, said a section of political observers.

West Bengal last went to the polls in March 2021, while Tamil Nadu held its Assembly elections in April 2021. So, both high stakes states are scheduled to vote next year, well before the extended compliance period lapses.

Women's vote-bank has played a crucial role in recent state elections, including Bihar. The handloom sector is considered a key driver of women’s empowerment, with over 70% of all weavers and allied workers being women, according to a government release of 5 August, 2025. West Bengal has seven active handloom clusters and is home to over 6 lakh weavers, the release had said.

In Tamil Nadu, according to the 4th All India Handloom Census (2019–20), the state had 2,43,575 handloom weavers and allied workers.

As per the Election Commission of India, West Bengal had 7.34 crore voters in 2021, while Tamil Nadu had 6.28 crore voters.

Arvind Mohan, former political researcher at Lokniti, the research programme of the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said when one looks at the numbers, it becomes clear why the handloom sector carries political weight.

"Any policy that eases pressure on handloom workers naturally has political implications,” Mohan said. “The handloom workforce is deeply rooted in rural constituencies, and decisions affecting their livelihoods can shape electoral outcomes. While the government may justify the relaxation of standards on economic grounds, such measures inevitably resonate politically in states where this sector is a large voting bloc,” he said.

Nishant Kumar, associate professor at the Centre for Political Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, sees a mix of economic necessity and political faactors as the reasons. “There are political implications, but we must also see this from an economic perspective. The government has been taking a more protectionist approach because of the steep US tariffs on textiles, and at this point it needs to support the handloom and textiles sectors,” Kumar said.

“Politics is always present in policymaking, especially when decisions affect key states, and every policy choice carries political repercussions. A decline in manufacturing will have political consequences as well,” he said.