‘Licence-free import of laptops only till October 31’

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NEW DELHI: The government has received interest from companies such as HP and Dell towards its new and upgraded production-linked incentive scheme for IT hardware manufacturing and has made it clear that there will be “no more extensions” beyond the October 31 deadline for those selling laptops in India through the import route without a licence.

A top source in the IT & electronics ministry told TOI that the government remains firm on the deadline by when licence-free imports will be allowed, even when there is demand from the industry to extend the relaxation by around 9-12 months. “From November 1, the new rule that mandates a licence for importing laptops and tablets to India will come into play. This date will be maintained,” the source said.
After mandating a licence for import of laptops and tablets to the country on August 3, the government had decided to defer the decision till October-end, amid fears that curbs could limit supplies in the market during the festive period .

The government had then stepped into damage control mode as top companies such as Samsung, Apple, HP and others were forced to stop shipments into the country as they needed a licence 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 faced flak from several quarters. 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 an “ad-hoc decision”.
The source said the government has taken steps to ensure that those deciding to import are not inconvenienced. “It will be a simple process and we are confident that companies who decide to import for the time being will not face any problems. However, we are confident that most of the companies will decide to go for local manufacturing in India, considering that we have given a very lucrative PLI scheme of Rs 17,000 crore to address any hiccups while manufacturing here.”
Although no reason had been stated for the licence condition, the ministry officials said that it was done to “safeguard the security of citizens” and added that imports will be allowed only from “trusted sources”.