NABL is a constituent board under the Quality Council of India established with the objective of providing the government and industry associations with a scheme for third-party assessment of quality and technical competence of the testing and calibration laboratories.

• It was established in 1988 as an autonomous body for providing accreditation services. Accreditation refers to third-party attestation by a conformity assessment body which conveys the final demonstration of its competence for carrying out specific conformity assessment tasks.
• NABL provides the laboratory aggregation services to the testing and calibration laboratories in accordance with ISO/ IEC 17025: 2005 ‘General Requirements for the Competence of Testing and Calibration Laboratories’ and ISO 15189: 2012 for medical laboratories.
• NABL provides these services in a non-discriminatory manner to all testing and calibration laboratories in India and abroad, regardless of the ownership, size, legal status and the degree of independence.
• NABL has been provided signatory member status by APLAC and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) under the mutual recognition arrangements (MIS).
• Users get access to the information about the accredited laboratories from the web-based directory of NABL accredited Laboratories.
• NABL provides accreditation in various fields of Science and Engineering which include biological, electrical, mechanical, chemical fluid flow, non-destructive, radiological, thermal and forensics under testing facilities, and electrotechnical, mechanical, thermal, radiological fluid flow and optical under collaboration facilities.
• It also provides accreditation for medical testing laboratories.