This is to apprise you regarding an advisory dated April 30, 2020 (‘Advisory’) issued by the Legal Metrology Division, Ministry of Consumer Affairs.

Rule 6(c) read with Rule 13 of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 (‘LMPC Rules’) states that every package shall bear a label containing declaration of net quantity in terms of standard unit of weight or measure of commodity (viz. kg, gram, litre etc.) or number of commodity in package (wherein commodity is sold by number).

Vide this Advisory, field officers have been directed not to take any coercive action where net quantity declared on packaged commodity is either in small or capital letters (like kg or KG, GRAM or Grams etc.) or in full or short form (KG or KILOGRAM or kilogram etc.). The only requirement is that declaration must contain net quantity in SI unit. 

NITYA Comments: 

The Advisory grants much-needed relaxation required qua labelling on packages. Minor errors pertaining to font style (upper-case and lower-case letters) and full / short form of symbol of units should not be penalized as long as net quantity confirms to SI Unit. Going by the spirit of the Advisory, this relaxation can also be extended to other symbols of units like metre (m), centimetre (cm), millilitre (mm), number (N), unit (U) etc. 

It is pertinent to note that Advisory will not apply to other declarations made on labels like name, description, address etc.