KARACHI, Nov 22: The Pakistan Standards Institute (PSI) was created in 1951 so that the industrial sector could be forced to adopt sound production practices. Two years ago, that is about 50 years on from its establishment, it was merged with another agency to form the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA).

In its 50-year history, the state-owned quality control agency has closed down only a few of industrial units on charges of production of substandard items, said one of its deputy directors on Friday. Tahir Hussain said the aim of the organization was not to close down industrial units but rather to educate them.

However, all this is set to change, its director general claimed on Friday. Dr Khaqan Hasan told Dawn his organization was planning to move swiftly against the unlicensed industrial units at which substandard ghee and edible oils were being produced.

Asked how PSQCA would be able to take the steps which it had so far largely failed to, he said: “This time we will involve the local and provincial authorities.

“First of all we will create the provincial committees. These committees will then be authorized to move against the units which don’t conform to the Pakistan Standard Specifications (PSS).”

In response to a question, he claimed that all this will be done within the next few weeks, not months.

Dr Hasan said not all standards in the PSS were in conformity with those of the World Health Organization (WHO) or the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. “The PSS are agreed to after a consensus among the industrial units and the relevant government agencies.

“There may be certain WHO and FAO standards which simply cannot be consistently and viably achieved by the local units. And then there’s the question of local tastes and culture, too.

“That is why there will always be a difference between the WHO/FAO standards and PSS.”

He said not all testing laboratories were competent to carry out quality control tests. But Dr Hasan added that the PSQCA was soon going to name certain laboratories as authorized centres where foodstuffs etc could be tested.

“We will first visit these laboratories to see if they are good enough. Then we will train the staff there. Only then will we authorize them to carry out quality control tests.”

The PSQCA’s director general claimed that these centres would help the PSQCA in promoting good production practices. He, however, declined to name the laboratories likely to be named as quality control centres.