The government is evaluating ways to tighten the import authorisation and management system for laptops, PCs and tablets to make imports more restricted through appropriate guidelines to be implemented on January 1, 2025. The stricter regime is aimed at encouraging domestic manufacturing and addressing security concerns, sources said.
“The existing import regime for laptops, PCs and five other IT hardware products put in place last November has affected imports minimally, as it is too liberal despite the fact that imports are no longer free and require authorisation. A possible tightening of rules is now being examined to meet the broad objective of securing supply chains, addressing security concerns, specifically related to China, and encouraging domestic manufacturing,” an official overseeing the development told businessline.
Import Regulation
If India wants to encourage global players like Apple to manufacture in the country and also give a boost to the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme designed to boost local production, it is important to check imports, the official added. “If we want to stop being dependent on imports for meeting our demand and requirement for PCs and laptops then appropriate policies have to be devised to achieve the goal. All countries across the globe do so,” the official said.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) had been holding consultations with the industry to understand the kind of import restrictions that would be acceptable at this point in time, but now the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), too, has jumped into the fray with parallel industry consultations.
“The idea is to speed up decision-making. The liberal import management system was put in place till September 30, 2024, but had to be extended by three months as a decision on further restrictions could not be taken. Now with both MeiTY and DGFT holding talks with the industry, there are hopes that a decision could be reached before the end of the year,” the official said.
Enough time will be given to the industry to adjust to the new rules, he assured.
In August 2023, the DGFT first announced a licencing regime for imports of seven IT hardware products, which included laptops, PCs, tablets, ultra-small form factor computers, servers, mainframe computers and automatic data processing machines. However, the move had to be diluted following stiff resistance from the industry as it affected global majors such as HP, Dell, HP Enterprises, Apple, Acer, Asus, and Lenovo. The US government, too, lobbied hard for its companies.
From November 1, 2023, the DGFT put in place an import authorisation system that directed importers of the seven IT hardware items to obtain import authorisations from the government but the process was automatic and no limits were placed on imports.
“There were almost no rejections for authorisations and as a result, total imports of the seven IT hardware items declined just marginally by about 3.4 per cent in 2023-24 to $8.4 billion compared to $8.7 billion in the previous fiscal. The share of China, the country being especially scrutinised, was at about 60 per cent,” the official said.