A new government rule, the Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) mandate, was introduced to guarantee the integrity and security of surveillance equipment sold in the country.
In the fluorescent-lit backrooms where India’s security systems integrators work, the shelves are thinning. Boxes that once held the latest IP cameras from familiar global brands are absent, their spaces now filled with hurried substitutions, models from manufacturers some integrators had never considered before.
On paper, the reason is straightforward. A new government rule, the Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) mandate, was introduced to guarantee the integrity and security of surveillance equipment sold in the country.
In practice, it has landed like a hammer on an industry that depends on predictability. Procurement schedules have fractured. Projects that were months from completion now sit in limbo. Costs have climbed.
In the scramble to comply, entire product lines have vanished from catalogues, replaced with whatever certified stock can be found. For many integrators, the STQC has become less a technical safeguard than a daily test of survival.
Tony Alex, Co-Founder of Trident Automation Systems, a systems integrator who works across multiple sectors, describes the bottleneck with quiet frustration.
“It is taking a lot of time for brands to get approvals,” Alex said. “In the market, people who are okay with analog products are going ahead with those, but others are having to wait for new products to come in.”
The scramble for stock
For some, the crisis began long before the April enforcement deadline. Antony Kavin Bosco, Founder of the systems integration company Gabo Enterprises, saw the warning signs and tried to get ahead of them.
“Once we got to know that there will not be any exclusion from the government side, we procured somewhere around 900 to 1,000 cameras,” Bosco said. “Once those stocks were exhausted, it became complete chaos. Whoever had stock could set the price, and there was no other option.”
The lack of transparency from both OEMs and the government has made planning nearly impossible. “Until date, we have not received a single piece after STQC certifications,” Bosco said. “From what we hear from OEMs, many are not able to pass the test.”
Giving an example of the impact, Bosco explained how the crunch hit a major national rollout for a financial services firm that is his client. The project covered 120 branches across India. “After somewhere around 70 to 80 branches, all stocks were gone. Nothing left,” he recalled. “They are paying us about 2,000 per unit, and I was procuring stocks at 3,600. We are doing it at almost 20 to 30 percent loss just to sustain the business. These are clients we have been with for six or seven years, so we just cannot leave it.”
A shrinking field
Large projects, which often require a mix of dome, bullet, and specialized cameras, now face a constraint that seems almost absurd: only certain models have been certified, and the list does not cover the range needed for complex installations.
“If you see from a project point of view, we need some specialized cameras which are not STQC, so we cannot complete the entire project requirements,” said Sandeep Patil, Founder and Managing Director of the systems integrator Securizen.
The scarcity is forcing changes in long-standing client relationships. Integrators who once swore by premium brands are now quoting alternatives they never considered before. Alex said, “People who have always used global companies are now moving to local brands when there is no option.”
Foreign OEMs on the sidelines
Many leading international brands have yet to obtain certification, leaving integrators unsure how to plan or promote their products.
“It is completely dark. We do not know what is going to happen and what we should be projecting,” Patil said. “Eventually we have also lost orders because of unavailability of the product, and because some people are not ready to pay the price increase.”
The STQC requirement has increased costs at almost every stage. Manufacturing lines have been retooled. Import-dependent models have been sidelined. For customers, the effect is felt in the final quote.
“This STQC is also adding on to the price,” Patil said. “Instead of making the system easy and approachable, we are getting it into more complexity.”
In some cases, the inflated pricing comes from within the channel itself. Bosco observed that distributors with pre-deadline stock withheld supply for months, only to release it later at sharply higher rates. “They started selling it for almost 50 percent more to regular buyers, and to end-clients at almost 100 percent more of MRP,” Bosco said.
Bleeding to keep the lights on
For integrators with long-standing clients, turning down work is rarely an option. “The biggest problem is if you have the team idle, the employees will switch,” Bosco said.
“Even if it is not a profit, we have to run things. We continue bleeding.”
This has meant taking on projects at a loss, just to maintain presence in accounts and prevent rivals from moving in.
Alex has faced the same reality. “It is 50-50. Some projects we can manage from distributor stock, others we cannot, and those are the ones where we are actually losing money,” he said.
One of the more ironic outcomes of the mandate has been renewed interest in analog systems. For Tony, this is a stopgap for some customers who cannot wait. Bosco said only certain segments are willing to consider analog.
“Most clients will not accept analog now,” he said. “For the last two years we pushed them to move away from analog, and now, even for temporary arrangements, they refuse. Smaller, budget-conscious customers may still welcome analog, but for most, it is no longer an option.”
Government intent vs. market reality
The government has framed the STQC as a way to secure hardware, reduce firmware vulnerabilities, and protect against data leaks. It is a goal few in the industry oppose. But many integrators believe the policy has been applied too broadly.
“In the software industry, there is VAPT certification for products in banking and finance,” Patil said. “People who are curious about data leakages from IP cameras could have STQC certification as an optional thing. Make it mandatory for government, but why should the consumer segment suffer?”
A call for course correction
Integrators are not asking for the STQC to be scrapped, but for it to be refined. “There has to be some relaxation for STQC certification, so that other people can also participate,” Patil said. “Make it mandatory for government projects, but do not restrict the consumer and private segments. Otherwise, you are just creating more chaos.”
For now, the industry is living day-to-day, stock-to-stock, order-to-order. “Across the industry, manufacturers are still holding back and waiting before ramping up production,” Bosco said. “They are cautious, not pushing new products into the market until STQC approvals are cleared. But in sectors that cannot wait, they are going ahead with whichever models are available. Others are stuck waiting for things to come.”
For India’s security systems integrators, the STQC’s well-intentioned push for quality assurance has become something far more complicated: a test of endurance in a market where trust, supply, and survival are in constant negotiation