BIS Certification for Steel Wire Ropes, Strands, Nylon Ropes & Wire Mesh - QCO 2024

The Steel Wires or Strands, Nylon or Wire Ropes and Wire Mesh (Quality Control) Order, 2024 - notified as S.O. 2581(E) on 3 July 2024 by DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce and Industry - makes BIS certification compulsory for 9 rope, strand, wire and mesh products sold or imported in India. Each product must conform to its own Indian Standard and carry the ISI Mark under a BIS licence granted per Scheme-I of Schedule-II of the BIS (Conformity Assessment) Regulations, 2018.

The history matters: the original order was the 2023 order - S.O. 5022(E), notified on 21 November 2023 - which would have come into force six months later. Before that happened, the government superseded it with the 2024 order, keeping the same 9 products and standards but setting fresh, explicit calendar dates for compliance. In effect, the 2024 order was an extension. That extension has now completely run out - as the table below makes unmistakably clear.

This is the question every manufacturer asks first, so here it is with zero ambiguity. Under the 2024 order (S.O. 2581(E)), BIS certification with the ISI Mark became mandatory on the following dates:

Read that plainly: since 1 June 2025, there is no category of manufacturer - large, medium, small or micro, Indian or foreign - that can legally manufacture, stock, sell or import any of the 9 notified products in India without a valid BIS licence and the ISI Mark. There is no transition window left, no grace period, and no turnover-based escape. If you are on the product list and unmarked, every consignment is a live violation today.

Every product in the order has its own Indian Standard, its own test regime and its own licence. Click through for the dedicated guide to each:

Per the order, the latest version of each Indian Standard, including amendments notified by BIS from time to time, applies.

Confusion 1 - wrong standards floating around. Some websites list standards like IS 1566 (hard-drawn steel wire fabric) or IS 16069 (welded mesh) under this QCO. They are not in this order. The 2024 Gazette table contains exactly the nine standards listed above - nothing more. If a consultant quotes you a different list, they have not read the Gazette.

Confusion 2 - chain-link and concertina. The wire mesh entry covers mechanically woven, double-twisted, hexagonal mesh for gabions, revet mattresses and rock fall netting (IS 16014:2018). Chain-link fencing, welded mesh and concertina wire are different products and are not covered by this entry.

This order is strict on exemptions. There is essentially one exemption: goods manufactured domestically purely for export. There is no exemption for goods imported as a component of a finished product, and no small-unit turnover exemption - Micro and Small Enterprises were only given later compliance dates (1 June 2025 and 1 March 2025 respectively), and both of those dates have now passed. Today the order applies with full force to every manufacturer, of every size, selling into India.

We built our practice around where this industry actually is. In India, wire rope manufacturing is anchored in Ranchi (home to one of the world's largest single-roof rope facilities), Hoshiarpur in Punjab, the historic Kolkata-Howrah rope belt, and Maharashtra's rope and synthetic-cordage plants around Mumbai, Thane and Pune. Barbed wire and mesh production concentrates in MSME clusters like Rajkot, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, with gabion and mesh units around Pune and Delhi NCR.

Internationally, India imports these products from mills in China (the Jiangsu/Nantong rope cluster), South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the UK, Italy, Germany, Turkey and the UAE - every one of which now needs FMCS certification with an Authorized Indian Representative to keep supplying India. Wherever your plant is on that map, we have handled that route.

BIS expects documentation in three broad groups. Getting the format right is the single biggest cause of delay for first-time applicants, which is exactly the part we take off your plate:

• Administrative: company registration, factory licence, trademark proof, and - for foreign makers - the Authorized Indian Representative appointment.
• Technical: product drawings and construction details, raw-material details (rope cores and wires are themselves checked against their own standards), machinery list, in-house test equipment list, and the recognised-lab test report.
• Quality control: the quality manual, competent QC personnel details, and the process and quality-control flow for the product.

The route depends on where your factory is. Indian manufacturers follow the domestic Scheme-I process - sample testing, documentation and a factory assessment before the licence is granted (official standard timeframe is about 30 days for a fully-prepared file; realistically plan for a few weeks to a few months). The step-by-step is on our BIS Certification for Indian Manufacturers page. Manufacturers outside India go through FMCS with an Authorized Indian Representative and typically an overseas factory audit (standard timeframe about 180 days) - see our FMCS guide.

Once the licence is granted, BIS issues a unique licence number (the CM/L number). The ISI Mark together with that CM/L number must be applied to the product and its packaging in the manner the standard prescribes - for ropes this typically travels with the reel/coil tag and test certificate that buyers and inspectors check. Selling a notified product that carries no mark, or a mark without a valid licence behind it, is treated as non-compliance.

The Bureau of Indian Standards is the certifying and enforcing authority for this product, and non-compliance is dealt with under the BIS Act, 2016:

• Seizure of stock from the factory, warehouse or distribution chain.
• Customs detention of imported consignments that arrive without a valid licence and marking.
• Fines and imprisonment as provided under the BIS Act, 2016 - for a first offence, imprisonment up to two years or a fine of at least two lakh rupees, rising steeply for repeat offences.
• Loss of tenders and contracts - mining houses, elevator OEMs, oil companies, utilities and infrastructure EPCs require the ISI Mark as a precondition.

This order spans nine very different products - crane ropes, elevator ropes, mine ropes, oil-well lines, stay strand, a nylon life-safety rope, barbed wire and gabion mesh - each under its own Indian Standard with its own test regime, and several tied to safety-critical, regulator-watched industries. We work across the entire order as specialists, prepare every document to exact BIS format, and coordinate lab testing and the factory assessment so your file keeps moving - whether your plant is in India or overseas.