Indian non-profit Information Technology organisation Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology today published guidelines for laptops and notebook computers on its website.

Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) had announced BEE Star Label version 1 energy standards for IT products.

The guidelines announced by BEE are based on United Sates Energy version 5 guidelines.

"US Star energy version 5 is the base for BEE standard announced today," MAIT Executive Director Ashwini Aggarwal told PTI.

"This had been long awaited launch. It is going to sidelines low quality products in the market, especially cheap and energy inefficient imported products," added Aggarwal.

The guideline will be extended to other categories of IT and Telecom products in a phased manner by BEE.

Unlike BEE star labels which indicate the efficiency of products like refrigerator, air-conditioner and others, these guidelines do not specify the levels of energy saving that a product will deliver to consumer.

"It will only indicate either product is energy efficient or it is not. The energy efficiency of the product will be computed on annual basis based on a formula that had been mentioned in the guideline," Ajay Mathur, director general, BEE said.

On energy efficiency difference between a non-certified and certified product, Aggarwal explained that during research it was found that non-certified products will consume at least 40 per cent more energy that the certified one.

However, Aggarwal added that most of the laptops available in India qualify the guidelines announced by BEE.

"It was only 3 out of 20 laptops that failed to qualify," said Aggarwal.