The import management system for laptops and other IT hardware products is expected to be extended by another three months beyond September 30 as more deliberations are needed to determine on whether and how this import-substitution policy ought to be taken forward, a senior official said.
A formal request for extension will be made by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY). “The three month extension will take care of the needs of importers for the current financial year,” the official said. “In the current year no disruption in imports is seen” despite the monitoring system, the official 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 the restricted list.
“The importers have taken an authorisation to import $ 9.5 billion worth of these products of which $ 8.4 billion worth of goods have come,” the official said.
The government had approved 110 applications for imports from brand owners, retailers and resellers. The companies who got the approval included the likes of Lenovo and Xiaomi, the local arms of which source these products from China, and other multinationals like Dell, HP, Apple and Samsung for import.
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.
