Metric System For India

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28182, 22 January 1957, Page 11

Metric System For India

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW DELHI. January 18. Industrialists and standards experts from Australia, Britain. Canada and Pakistan will meet in New Delhi on Monday to try to ensure that India’s introduction of metric measurement on April 1 does not harm trade. Under an Act of Parliament passed last month, the change will be made in phases over the next 10 years. India will also have decimal coinage. New Zealand and South Africa will be represented at the twoweek Commonwealth standards conference by observers. The director of the Indian Standards Institutions, Dr. L. C. Verman, said today that the conference would be attended by 50 delegates from abroad and 80 from India. The object was to ensure the alignment of standards to attain a smooth and increased flow of Commonwealth trade. “Most Commonwealth countries, especially the United Kingdom, have been in the past accustomed to supply materials to both inch, pound and metric countries,” he said. The conference will deal with standards for steel, electrical equipment, machine tools, cables, safety requirements of domestic appliances, and legal protection for certification markings. Dr. Verman said that it was hoped the conference might also result in setting up machinery to attain co-ordination of standards so that Commonwealth countries had as many common standards as possible.