The government on Tuesday extended the import management system for laptops and other IT hardware by another three months beyond September 30.
“Importers are allowed to apply for Import Authorisations which will be valid up to 31.12.2024. Further, the existing Import Authorisations issued till 30.09.2024 will continue to be valid up to 31.12.2024,” a policy circular issued by Directorate General of Foreign Trade said
For imports after December 31, 2024 importers would be required to apply for fresh authorisations subject to detailed guidance to be provided shortly, the circular said.
The import-management system was put in place for imports of laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra small form factor computers and servers from November 1 last year and was to run till September 30, 2024. The government had intended to use the data generated by the system of import monitoring to finetune its policy on allowing imports of these products only from trusted sources. Officially this system has been termed as “restricted import authorisation”. Another spin-off of the policy that the government is expecting is creating an atmosphere that encourages local manufacturing of these products.
The system came in response to industry’s outcry over a notification by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on August 3 last year putting imports of these computing devices on restricted list.
“The importers have taken an authorization to import $ 9.5 billion worth of these products of which $ 8.4 billion worth of goods have come,” the official had said earlier.
For now, under this system approvals are available on tap to importers and all they have to provide is the name, quality and value of an item they want to bring in. It is an automatic import authorisation with no scrutiny. The biggest source of imports of IT hardware are China, Singapore, Hong Kong, US and Malaysia.
