Meeting on importance of laboratories accreditation held at Lal Mandi Srinagar

Srinagar,: A meeting on the importance of laboratory accreditation as per ISO / IEC 17025:2017 under the National / International recognition of ILA / MRA and NABL was held at Directorate of Agriculture Lal Mandi, here.
The meeting was presided over by Director Agriculture Kashmir Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal.
On the occasion the Director held a detailed deliberation on various concerned issues including calibration and testing in laboratories, accreditation of laboratories, structural and resource requirements, etc.
While having interaction with the participants Iqbal highlighted the importance of accreditation of laboratories in the present scenario and said that the network of accredited laboratories could play an important role in establishment and maintenance of set/ prescribed National/ International quality standards.
He said that we have a distinction of producing some special agricultural crops and agricultural commodities. Once we have a strong network of accredited labs in Jammu & Kashmir our produce will get an acceptance at national and international level which could ultimately increase the commercial importance of our produce and will ensure the maximum outreach to our products, he added.
Earlier Director NIIRT Centre for Calibration, Analysis & Testing S.K. Sinha gave a detailed powerpoint presentation on various procedures that are being adopted during the accreditation process of different laboratories.
Joint Director Agriculture Inputs, Joint Director Agriculture Extension, Joint Director Apiculture & Mushroom, Agriculture Chemist Kashmir, Chief Agriculture Officer, Srinagar attended the meeting in person while as Chief Agriculture Officers & heads of different departmental laboratories of Kashmir division participated virtually.