Six claims you will see on almost every laboratory supply website in India, and the one question that establishes whether each is real. Including, uncomfortably, the one that applies to us.
Ask: For the certificate, and for the scope annexure.
NABL accreditation is granted scope by scope — a laboratory accredited for Thermal is not accredited for Force. The certificate alone tells you almost nothing; the scope annexure lists the exact parameters, ranges and measurement uncertainties covered. A calibration performed outside that scope may still be competent work, but it is not accredited work, and your assessor will treat it differently.
Ask: Which certification body issued it, and who accredits that body?
ISO certifies nobody. Certificates come from private certification bodies, whose credibility rests on accreditation by NABCB in India or an IAF-signatory equivalent abroad. A certificate from an unaccredited body is worth very little in a tender — and they exist in quantity.
Ask: For the EU Declaration of Conformity.
The phrase itself is a tell. For most laboratory instruments the manufacturer self-declares conformity and affixes the mark; nobody "certifies" or "approves" it. The correct phrasing is "CE marked". A supplier who writes "CE certified" is either being loose or does not know the difference — worth establishing which.
Ask: For the BIS licence number.
"ISI marked" means the manufacturer holds a BIS licence for that product against a specific Indian Standard. "Conforms to IS 1234" means someone believes it meets the standard. These are materially different claims and the second is often written where the first is implied.
Ask: Certified by whom, and for what scope?
In India, GMP compliance is enforced through State Licensing Authorities for manufacturing licences, with CDSCO as central regulator. WHO-GMP certificates and Certificates of Pharmaceutical Product are issued by the SLA with CDSCO for export purposes. "GMP certified" without a named issuer and a scope is a marketing phrase.
Ask: Whose name is on the certificate?
This is the most common one, and the easiest to check. A manufacturer’s ISO 9001 certifies that manufacturer. A dealer reproducing it on their own credentials page is not certified — they are quoting someone else’s certificate. Read the name on the document, not the page it appears on.
Applying that last one to ourselves
Patel Chemhub is a trading company and currently holds no certifications of its own. Where a certification is referenced anywhere on this site, it belongs to the party named on the certificate, and we name them.
When we do hold certifications, they will be listed on the quality and compliance page with certificate numbers, issuing bodies and validity dates — so you can apply the same six questions to us.
The practical consequence is calibration. A laboratory holding a NABL scope needs its measuring equipment calibrated under a matching accredited scope, with a certificate showing the traceability chain. A certificate that says “calibrated” without an accreditation reference, or one that carries a NABL symbol for a parameter outside the scope, will be questioned.
It bites again on Class A volumetric ware. A Class A conformity certificate is a manufacturing statement about tolerance — it is not a traceable calibration, and buying Class A does not discharge the periodic calibration obligation.
And it bites on pharmaceutical equipment, where a “GMP model” instrument without executed IQ, OQ and PQ protocols, chamber mapping and recovery studies is an instrument you cannot yet use for release testing.
