Street lighting represents India's most significant LED luminaire deployment — with tens of millions of LED street lights installed through Smart City missions, EESL programmes, municipal replacements, and highway lighting projects. The scale of this market, and the high unit values involved, makes BIS certification for street lights a commercially critical compliance requirement.
Every LED street light installed in India through government projects must be certified. Every imported street light must be cleared through customs with valid BIS CRS documentation. The transition to IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 is mandatory for all manufacturers and importers in this segment.
---New marking requirements have been added specific to road and street lighting luminaires. These include additional technical parameters on the luminaire body or rating plate that are required by municipalities, highway authorities, and electrical contractors for installation and maintenance:
All 12 changes in Part 1: 2026 apply — particularly:
Street lighting luminaires must meet photometric requirements that general luminaires do not face. Road lighting is designed to specific illuminance and uniformity requirements on the road surface — governed by Indian Road Congress (IRC) standards and CIE recommendations.
While IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 is a safety standard (not a performance standard), photometric data is essential for procurement and project specification. Government tenders for street lights invariably specify photometric requirements — luminous intensity distribution, lux levels on the road, uniformity ratios. This data is generated through goniophotometric measurement — different from the integrating sphere measurement used for LED lamps.
House of Testing's scope development for street light testing includes goniophotometric capability for generating IES/LDT photometric files essential for street lighting design software.
Street lights are permanently exposed to rain, humidity, dust, and occasionally high-pressure cleaning. IP65 or higher is the de facto standard for Indian street light applications. IP65 requires:
Some premium applications specify IP66 (more powerful water jet) or even IP67 (immersion). The new IS 10322 (Part 1): 2026 adds IPX9 as a testable parameter for applications where high-pressure hot water cleaning is used.
Street lights are directly connected to distribution infrastructure — exposed to lightning-induced transient overvoltages that can destroy drivers. The standard requires surge immunity testing that simulates these voltage transients.
The 2026 update to Part 1 includes requirements addressing luminaires needing OVC III impulse withstand capability — directly relevant to street lights connected to the distribution grid.
India's ambient temperatures regularly exceed 45°C in many regions. Street lights must operate safely and maintain photometric performance at these elevated ambient temperatures. Temperature rise testing under IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 must be conducted at the maximum rated ambient temperature.
A street light rated for 40°C maximum ambient may overheat and fail drivers prematurely when ambient temperatures reach 47°C in peak summer. Accurate thermal design and testing at appropriate ambient temperatures is essential.
---No. IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 is a safety standard — it certifies that your street light is electrically safe, mechanically robust, and properly marked. It does not certify photometric performance (lux output, uniformity, distribution).
Photometric performance certification for street lights is separate and involves:
Tender specifications typically require both:
House of Testing provides IS 10322 safety testing. Contact us also about photometric testing capability for your tender submissions.
No. As of the research for this article (May 2026), BIS has not announced any extension to the August 2, 2026 concurrent running deadline for IS 10322 series. The deadline is firm.
Be cautious of information from testing laboratories or consultants suggesting extensions — this may be wishful thinking or outdated information. Always verify directly with BIS notifications at bis.gov.in or through the Manakonline portal.
If an extension were announced, BIS would publish it through official Gazette notification and on their website. As of this writing, no such extension exists.
No. From August 2, 2026, licences under the old IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2012 standard will no longer be operative (unless the licence holder has completed the transition to the 2026 standard). Products supplied under a lapsed licence would be non-compliant with BIS requirements.
Government contracts typically include BIS compliance as a contractual requirement. Supplying products with an invalid BIS certificate would constitute a breach of contract in addition to regulatory non-compliance.
Start the transition process now. Testing typically takes 30–45 days. Even starting in mid-June, transition can be completed before August 2 with time to spare.
Yes — IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 applies to all street and road lighting luminaires regardless of wattage. However, high-wattage products present additional considerations:
Yes — driver substitution is a material change that requires retesting if:
In practice, LED drivers from different suppliers — even with the same rated specifications — have different circuit topologies, different surge immunity designs, and different EMF characteristics. Substituting a driver without retesting creates compliance risk if BIS enforcement tests a market sample with the new driver and finds it does not match the certified specification.
The correct process: test with the intended driver, document the driver specification in the test report, and treat any driver change as a scope amendment requiring BIS notification.
No. BIS CRS registration is specific to the registration holder — the entity whose name appears on the certificate. Another company's BIS registration cannot be used by you.
However, you have options:
Option 1: Apply for BIS CRS registration in your own name, using test reports from a BIS-recognized laboratory. You do not need to be the manufacturer to hold a BIS CRS registration, but you take on the compliance obligations. Option 2: The manufacturer can add you as an Authorised Distributor for their BIS registration — note that this does not transfer the registration to you but allows you to represent their certified products under their registration. Option 3: Import and sell products under the manufacturer's BIS registration — this is permissible only if the products are sold under the manufacturer's brand name, not your brand name. If you brand the products (put your company's brand on them), you need your own registration.For most Indian importers who source from Chinese manufacturers and sell under their own brand — a separate BIS CRS registration in the importer's name is required.
Street lights use high-power drivers with inductors and transformers designed to deliver 100–250W or more. The magnetic components in these drivers generate electromagnetic fields that are typically stronger than those in low-wattage indoor drivers.
However, the EMF safety concern for street lights is somewhat mitigated by installation height — street lights are mounted at 5–12 metres, far above the height where pedestrians would be exposed. At these distances, EMF from the driver falls below levels of health concern regardless of absolute emission levels.
The EMF concern is greater for low-mounting luminaires — pole-mounted low-level bollard lights, for example — where the luminaire may be closer to head height.
The EMF test must still be conducted and documented as part of IS 10322 (Part 1): 2026 compliance regardless of mounting height. The test is conducted at standard measurement distances, and the limits must be met at those distances.
Luminaires with replaceable LED modules present an interesting certification question. The luminaire is certified as a complete assembly — housing, driver, LED module, and optics together. If the LED module is replaceable, there is a question of whether replacement modules are separately certified and whether replacement with a different module affects the luminaire's certification status.
IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 certifies the complete luminaire as supplied. If your luminaire is supplied with a specific LED module, that configuration is certified.
For future replacement modules: if they have the same specification, power, and electrical interface as the original certified module — they can be used as service replacements without requiring new luminaire certification. If replacement modules have different specifications — the luminaire assembly with the new module should be recertified.
This is a design consideration worth planning ahead for, particularly for municipalities and highway authorities with large installed bases who plan multi-year maintenance programmes.
Yes. BIS CRS certification for products under mandatory certification order applies to all supply in India — commercial, private, or government. The obligation is on the product, not on the customer.
A street light installed in a private apartment complex, industrial park, or commercial building must be BIS certified under IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026 just as much as one installed in a government project.
BIS enforcement does not distinguish between government and private sector supply. Non-certified products can be seized from any installation or supply chain regardless of the end customer.
If the changes are so extensive that the product is effectively a different design — different driver circuit topology, different LED module specification, different housing that changes the thermal environment — you are best served by treating this as a new product and filing a fresh BIS CRS application.
BIS offers a "change in scope" process for adding models or making modifications to existing licences. However, this process is appropriate for incremental changes (adding a new wattage variant, switching a component within the same specification), not fundamental redesigns.
A fresh application allows you to properly document the new design, test the new product comprehensively under IS 10322 (Part 5/Sec 3): 2026, and receive a certificate that accurately reflects your current product.
Contact House of Testing for a pre-submission consultation to determine the most efficient certification path for your updated design.