India launched its first-ever Accreditation Scheme for Mobile Food Testing Laboratories on 10 August 2026, a move that takes quality-assured food testing beyond brick-and-mortar laboratories. The scheme was unveiled by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), a constituent board of the Quality Council of India (QCI), under its Integrated Assessment Programme. It was announced at the Gunvatta Samanvaya, a Multilateral MoU Exchange Ceremony, held in New Delhi.
What Is the Accreditation Scheme for Mobile Food Testing Laboratories?
Accreditation is a formal, third-party declaration that an organisation is technically competent to do a specific job. In simple terms, an accredited mobile food testing laboratory is a lab-on-wheels that has been checked and certified by NABL for its competence, equipment, staff and testing procedures.
Until now, accreditation was only given to fixed, brick-and-mortar laboratories. The new scheme extends this formal recognition to mobile units for the first time. A mobile food testing laboratory is a specially fitted vehicle equipped with testing instruments that can travel to remote villages, marketplaces, schools, fairs and public gatherings to test food samples on the spot.
The scheme establishes a clear framework under which these mobile units can deliver reliable, quality-assured and internationally benchmarked testing services closer to communities. It is expected to strengthen food safety surveillance, improve access to quality testing, support faster regulatory intervention and enhance consumer confidence.
The Integrated Assessment Programme: One Assessment, Many Recognitions
The new scheme operates under NABL’s Integrated Assessment Programme, a mechanism that saves laboratories time and money. Earlier, a food testing laboratory had to undergo separate assessments by every regulator that recognised it. Under the Integrated Assessment Programme, NABL conducts a single combined assessment for accreditation and regulatory recognition at the same time.
Regulators and commodity boards associated with this programme include the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the Export Inspection Council (EIC), the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) and boards such as the Spices Board, Tea Board, Coconut Development Board and the Indian Oilseeds and Produce Export Promotion Council. The recognition given by these bodies is based on the laboratory complying with the general requirements of ISO/IEC 17025, the international standard for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, along with the specific rules of each regulator.
This approach reduces duplication in assessments, promotes mutual recognition of results, improves regulatory efficiency and eases doing business, while keeping quality and compliance standards high. In-house laboratories of food business operators, such as manufacturers and processors, are not eligible for recognition under this programme.
The multilateral Memorandum of Understanding exchanged at the ceremony brought participating organisations together to reaffirm their commitment to coordinated assessments and regulatory harmonisation.
The Key Institutions Behind the Scheme
NABL: India’s National Laboratory Accreditation Body
NABL provides third-party accreditation to conformity assessment bodies, which include testing and calibration laboratories, medical testing laboratories, proficiency testing providers and reference material producers. It was set up following a 1973 recommendation of the Planning Commission and the establishment of the National Coordination of Testing and Calibration Facilities in 1982. NABL was formally registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 on 12 August 1998, initially under the Department of Science and Technology, and it became a constituent board of QCI in 2016.
NABL accredits testing and calibration laboratories as per ISO/IEC 17025 and medical laboratories as per ISO 15189. It is a signatory to the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and the Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC). This means test reports from NABL-accredited laboratories are accepted in many countries, which reduces technical barriers to trade.
QCI and the Nodal Department
QCI was established in 1997 as an autonomous, non-profit body under a public-private partnership between the government and the three major industry associations: ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI. It is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is its nodal department. QCI coordinates accreditation activities through its constituent boards, of which NABL is one. The Secretary General of QCI is Chakravarthy T. Kannan, and the Chairperson of NABL is Dr Sandip Shah.
Why Mobile Food Testing Matters
India’s food safety challenge is closely tied to the reach of testing facilities. Most accredited food testing laboratories are fixed units concentrated in cities, while a large share of the population lives in rural areas. This gap means food adulteration often goes undetected in towns and villages, where staples such as milk, edible oils, spices, ghee and sweets are most prone to being mixed with cheap and sometimes harmful substitutes.
The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) already runs a programme called Food Safety on Wheels, under which it deploys mobile food testing units to conduct on-the-spot testing for common adulterants in milk, water and edible oil. Around 305 such mobile units have been deployed across states and union territories, alongside a network of recognised laboratories. The Strengthening of Food Testing System in the Country (SoFTeL) scheme supports this ecosystem by upgrading state food laboratories and providing mobile food testing vans.
However, most of these mobile units were not formally accredited, meaning their results lacked an official, internationally recognised stamp of competence. The new NABL scheme fills exactly this gap by bringing mobile units within the formal accreditation framework.
Significance of the New Scheme
The scheme carries significance across several layers. For citizens, it brings trustworthy testing to their doorstep, so a consumer in a small town does not have to travel far or wait long to get food tested. For regulators, accredited mobile units act as a faster tool for surveillance, allowing officials to detect adulteration and act before contaminated food spreads.
For the food industry and exporters, accreditation under an internationally benchmarked framework means that results generated in the field can be trusted. This helps products clear quality checks more easily, both domestically and in export markets, and reduces the need for re-testing.
For the quality ecosystem, the scheme reinforces India’s quality infrastructure, a network of institutions that set standards, test products and certify compliance. DPIIT Secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia said at the launch that embedding quality across the entire value chain would contribute to India’s growth journey towards 2047. NABL Chairperson Dr Sandip Shah and QCI Secretary General Chakravarthy T. Kannan similarly stressed the role of collaboration, convergence and credible institutions in building a strong quality ecosystem.
The Gunvatta Samanvaya Ceremony
The scheme was launched at Gunvatta Samanvaya, which translates roughly to an alignment or convergence of quality. Held in New Delhi, the ceremony was attended by senior officials from QCI, NABL, regulatory authorities and commodity boards associated with the Integrated Assessment Framework.
The central feature of the event was a multilateral MoU exchange among participating organisations. The memorandum formalises the commitment of these bodies to work together on coordinated assessments, regulatory harmonisation and the reduction of duplication in assessment processes. The ceremony also showcased how the Integrated Assessment Framework brings different regulators onto a single platform, so that a laboratory seeking recognition from multiple bodies deals with one assessment instead of many.
The Way Forward
The success of the scheme will depend on how quickly mobile food testing units, whether run by states, municipalities or private operators, come forward to seek accreditation. As these units get accredited, their test results can be used more confidently for surveillance, enforcement and even legal action under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
A wider network of accredited mobile laboratories fits into the larger policy goal of a quality-led growth model for India. As the government pushes for quality across the value chain, the same integrated approach used here could be extended to testing in other areas, such as water quality, drugs and agricultural produce. If adopted widely, the scheme could turn the once-luxury of reliable food testing into a routine service available in every district.
Key Takeaways
- The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) launched India’s first Accreditation Scheme for Mobile Food Testing Laboratories on 10 August 2026.
- NABL is a constituent board of the Quality Council of India (QCI), established in 1997 and registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, with the DPIIT as its nodal department.
- NABL was registered as a society on 12 August 1998 and accredits testing laboratories under ISO/IEC 17025.
- The scheme was launched under NABL’s Integrated Assessment Programme, which allows a laboratory to get accreditation and regulatory recognition through a single combined assessment.
- NABL is a signatory to the Mutual Recognition Arrangements of ILAC and APAC, giving its accreditation international recognition.
- The launch took place at the Gunvatta Samanvaya, a Multilateral MoU Exchange Ceremony, held in New Delhi.
