After concerns being raised by the industry on imposing licensing regime, the government last month allowed shipments of IT hardware to be brought in on a mere 'authorisation'.
Govt had announced in August that imports of laptops, PCs, tablets etc would require a licence. This has now been tweaked, but these items remain in 'restricted' category.
Unless India lines up a ‘Plan B’ before Modi govt can nix the model it has come to depend on, the unimpactful attempts to hurt China economically will continue.
So far, reversal of trade-policy reforms was confined to jacking up tariffs, but govt has re-introduced physical controls, regressing to the mindset that created the licence-permit raj.
The Indian experience so far is that when imports are banned or restricted in the expectation of domestic manufacturers filling in, it almost never — in fact, never — happens.
The Centre issued a notification Thursday imposing with 'immediate effect' a licencing requirement for the import of IT hardware to curb dependence and boost domestic manufacturing.
Reliance recently launched the JioBook, which costs less than Rs 20,000 and is made in China. If Reliance needs to import even half a million units of this device, it will now require a licence.
China accounted for 58% of inflow of 7 items imports of which are now restricted. Move could've been prompted by 'genuine apprehension of a future security risk’, it is learnt.
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