New Footwear System In India: Currently US (America) or UK (British) standards are available for shoe size, but now India is going to have its own standard of shoe size. It is proposed to name the new size system ‘Bha’. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Leather Research Institute (CSIR-CLRI), based in Chennai, conducted an all-India survey to record the foot sizes of Indians, so that a standard size system could be developed for footwear manufactured in India. .
The survey revealed that India’s ethnic diversity would require multiple shoe size systems and also revealed that people from Northeast India tend to have smaller foot sizes. CSIR-CLRI installed 3D scanning machines at various locations to better understand the dimensions of the foot of an average Indian person.
Study conducted on more than 1 lakh feet (New Footwear System In India) 
CSIR-CLRI, after studying the foot size of approximately 1,01,880 Indians living across 79 locations, found that Indian women’s foot size peaks around 11 years of age, while men’s foot size peaks around 15-16 years. Grows till the age of one year. Additionally, Indians have wider feet compared to Europeans and Americans, due to which most shoes ordered online often do not fit the feet of Indians.
‘BHA’ system will be implemented in the year 2025
The new BHA system aims to create 8 different sizes for different age groups and genders, which are a perfect fit for about 85 percent of India’s population. Now CSIR-CLRI has submitted its recommendations to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). DPIIT has sent these recommendations to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for approval, from where if approval is received then the BS system will be implemented by the year 2025.
Why was this needed?
The UK standard of shoe size in India was introduced by the British before independence and at that time there was no data regarding the size of Indian feet, due to which UK size shoes continued to be made in India for a long time. However, now the population of the country is increasing, making it one of the largest footwear markets in the world, hence there are plans to introduce BHA footwear system.