Sudhir Kumar / New Delhi
The National Test House (NTH), functioning under the Department of Consumer Affairs, has established a modern Shoe Testing Laboratory at its Northern Region centre in Ghaziabad to strengthen quality assurance in India’s rapidly expanding footwear sector.
According to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, the state-of-the-art facility will enhance NTH’s capability to provide reliable and high-precision footwear testing services for MSMEs, manufacturers, exporters, consumers and regulatory agencies across the country.
The Ministry said the new laboratory marks a significant step towards building a stronger quality-testing infrastructure for the footwear industry. Equipped with advanced testing instruments and modern infrastructure, the facility will assess footwear products as per relevant Indian quality standards.
The laboratory will be capable of testing a wide range of footwear categories, including industrial and safety shoes, school shoes, leather footwear and other products.
Officials said the location of the laboratory in Ghaziabad offers strategic advantages due to its proximity to major footwear manufacturing hubs such as Delhi-NCR, Kanpur and Agra. This is expected to help manufacturers by enabling faster testing of samples, reducing transportation costs and improving accessibility for industries across northern India.
The Ministry noted that the initiative is in line with the vision of “Viksit Bharat” and the objectives of the Make in India programme. It is aimed at improving manufacturing competitiveness, encouraging self-reliance and creating a stronger quality assurance ecosystem for the Indian footwear industry.