NABL
Definition
National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, a constituent board of the Quality Council of India. It is the sole accrediting body for laboratories in India and a signatory to the APAC and ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangements, which is why a NABL-accredited result is accepted internationally without re-testing.
- Full name
- National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories
- Accreditation standard
- ISO/IEC 17025
- International recognition
- Signatory to ILAC and APAC mutual-recognition arrangements
- Scope in India
- Sole accrediting body for forensic, analytical, and testing laboratories
Common questions
What is NABL and why does it matter for forensic labs?+
NABL is India's National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. A NABL-accredited forensic lab meets ISO/IEC 17025 quality standards, which means its results are trusted internationally without needing re-testing. For DNA analysis in India, NABL accreditation is currently the primary quality marker pending the DNA Technology Bill.
Does NABL accreditation work internationally?+
Yes. NABL is a signatory to mutual-recognition arrangements with ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation) and APAC (Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation). These agreements mean a NABL-accredited result is accepted in other countries without additional verification.
What is NABL's relationship to India's quality system?+
NABL is a constituent board of India's Quality Council of India (QCI). It is the sole accrediting body for forensic and analytical laboratories across India, making it the official authority for laboratory quality standards in the country.
Related terms
- ISO/IEC 17025:2017
- The international standard specifying general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. Covers management (document control, non-conforming work, audits) and...
- Proficiency Testing (PT)
- A quality assurance mechanism in which laboratories analyse blind samples distributed by an external scheme coordinator and have their results compared against...
- Quality Assurance (QA)
- The management system that ensures QC actually happens and stays effective over time: written SOPs, training and competence records, internal audits, document...
- Quality Control (QC)
- The day-to-day activities that verify a single batch of results is reliable: method blanks, certified-reference-material runs, duplicate injections, spike recoveries and control-chart...
- ABFDE
- American Board of Forensic Document Examiners: the US professional certification body whose diplomate examination is the recognised US standard for examiner competence...
- Accreditation
- Formal recognition by a standards body (such as UKAS in the UK, A2LA in the US, or NABL in India) that a...
- Accreditation Body
- A national or regional organisation that assesses laboratories against ISO/IEC 17025 and grants accreditation. Examples include UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service), NIST-associated...
- ACE-V
- Analysis, Comparison, Evaluation, Verification: the four-stage method for latent print examination used by accredited forensic fingerprint laboratories. Analysis examines the latent in...
- Calibration
- A steganalysis technique that estimates the cover image statistics by cropping or decompressing and re-compressing the test image to produce a reference....
- Certified Reference Material (CRM)
- A sample with one or more analyte concentrations established by an accredited body and traceable to a national metrology institute. NIST SRM...
- CFSL
- Central Forensic Science Laboratory: a central government lab operating under DFSS. India has CFSLs at New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Pune, Guwahati,...
- ENFSI DNA WG
- ENFSI DNA Working Group; the European body that publishes the DNA Profiling Best Practice Manual, the Evaluative Reporting Guideline, and coordinates the...
Explained in these topics
- Accreditation and Quality as a Legal RequirementNational Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, the Indian accreditation body under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Interna...
- Introduction and Scope of Questioned Document ExaminationNational Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories: the Indian accreditation body for ISO/IEC 17025 laboratory accreditation, including fore...
- ISO 17025 and Quality Management in Forensic LaboratoriesNational Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, a constituent board of the Quality Council of India. It is the sole accrediting body for...
- ISO/IEC 17025, SWGDAM, ENFSI and NABL AccreditationNational Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories; India's ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation body, a signatory to the ILAC mutual-recognition arr...
- Quality Control Management in Forensic InstitutionsNational Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, a constituent body of the Quality Council of India (QCI). The single Indian accreditatio...