In a late evening notification, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said import consignments of laptops, computer and tablets will be cleared without licence until October 31, 2023. “Liberal transitional arrangements are provided for import of laptops, tablets, all-in-one PCs, ultra small form factor, computers and servers falling under HSN 8471,” DGFT said.
The government stepped into damage control mode as top companies such as Samsung, Apple and others were forced to stop shipments into the country as they would have needed a licence from Friday to keep the supply chain going. The government had given a notice of just over 12 hours before putting in place the new regime, which is facing flak. There was discomfort in sections of the industry as well as on social media that the government was trying to drive in a licensing regime through the “ad-hoc decision”, which would have abruptly forced the companies to change their sourcing plans for India.
Minister of state Rajeev Chandrasekhar denied any such intentions and insisted the step had been taken to have secure sourcing. “This is not at all about licence raj. It is about regulating imports to ensure trusted and verifiable systems and ensuring the Indian tech ecosystem uses trusted and verified systems that are imported/domestically manufactured trusted systems/products,” he said through his Twitter handle.
A senior official in the IT ministry said while the government wants to encourage top computer and tablet companies to invest in India, the new regime will not prohibit them from engaging in imports through licences.
“The government will rather extend support during the transition, and goods in transit will not be impacted,” the official said, adding that DGFT will issue licences “within minutes”. “DGFT will issue clarification that there is no restriction on the number of products, quantum of imports, or number of licences per entity,” the official said.
The ministry has already reached out to the companies regarding the extension. “This will also give time to companies to apply for licences.” The official also said DGFT will clarify modalities for rejection of application for licence whenever such a decision will be taken.
Within naming China directly, the official said in view of increasing instances of cyber attacks, India needs to take “preventive measures” to ensure that shipments from a particular geography are countered.