Certification: Seven Labs of PSQCA operating illegally
Aftab Ahmed
Islamabad: As many as seven labs of Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) are illegally operating as they have no valid licences to issue certification.
Seven of the PSQCA’s nine labs and technical offices lack valid operating licences and therefore, they cannot certification. However, they continue operating without valid licences.
Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), the country’s national standards-setting organisation, is facing a new difficulty because the majority of its labs and departments are not authorised to carry out their tasks due to a lack of proper certification.
According to information on the Pakistan National Accreditation Council’s website, only the Food Testing Laboratory PSQCA, Karachi, and the Technical Services Centre (TSC)-PSQCA Lahore have valid licences until May 2022 and November 2021, respectively.
The licences of seven entities including PSQCA Control Centre (QCC), Lahore have expired in July 2019. The licenses of Sugar Testing Lab, Quality Control Centre, Karachi, expired in July 2020, Water Testing Lab, PSQCA, Karachi July 2020, Oil & Fat Testing Lab, Quality.
All of these labs are responsible not only for upholding industrial product standards but also for consumer and consumable products.
Surprisingly, despite the suspension of accreditation for nearly two years, the PSQCA has kept producing test reports from these laboratories.
According to a PSQCA official, the operation of accreditation of important laboratories has come to halt due to non-compliance with the Pakistan National Accreditation Council’s mandatory requirements.
“Because PSQCA’s labs have no accreditation, there is a question mark on their reports on which the level and quality of mandatory certification items they are ascertaining,” officials said.
Among other things, the PSQCA is responsible for enforcing and implementing ISO:9001-2000 and ISO:14000 quality and environmental management systems, as well as assisting local industries in obtaining certification for these systems.
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Since July 2019, the PSQCA-Quality Control Centre (QCC) has been functioning without a legal operating licence, but it has continued to operate as a multifunctional testing laboratory that provides testing services in the fields of Food, Materials, Papers & Textiles, Microbiology, and Water testing.
The Quality Control Centre now offers testing services for 120 different samples, including animal feed, biscuits, bleaching liquid and powder, cement, cold drinks, cooking oil, fertiliser, dry battery cell, electric fans, electric iron, electric motor (full test), and so on.
Similarly, the licence of the PSQCA’s “Microbiological Laboratory” in Karachi expires in July 2020, and one of its primary functions is to detect bacteria in diverse media.
The lab screens for coliforms, faecal coliforms, e-coli, faecal Enterococci/streptococci, and pseudomonas in water.
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The “Microbiological Laboratory” in Karachi conducts tests to detect coliforms, e-coli, yeast, and mould in beverages, as well as testing for coliforms, faecal coliforms, e-Coli, pseudomonas, and viable bacteria.
In response to the enquiry, a senior official from the Ministry of Science and Technology stated that they need approximately Rs16 million for the appropriate accreditation of the PSQCA labs, but the PSQCA’s top management must move a summary in this respect.
