Licensing norms for import of laptops, PCs to be a one-off measure

The compulsory import licensing norms introduced for import of laptops and tablets, which has triggered widespread concerns about a return to pre-liberalisation era policies, is a “one-off” move and won’t become a “trend” across sectors, a senior government functionary assured.  

“It is essential to ensure that measures such as these do not lead to a pre-1991 kind of regime and one has to be vigilant to ensure that words such as license do not come back in to our vocabulary,” the official told Business Today. 

Emphasising that the shift in the import policy for laptops, tablets and servers, was driven by security concerns, the official underlined that “such licensing norms are unlikely to be introduced” for other goods that are imported. “It was done in the case of laptops and tablets due to certain concerns but will not be replicated at a large scale,” the source pointed out.   

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade of the Commerce Ministry through a notification last month had amended the import policy condition for specified goods like laptops, personal computers, servers and tablets and had said their imports shall be ‘restricted’ and would be allowed against a valid licence for restricted imports. The import curbs, which were to kick in with immediate effect from August 3, were later deferred and will now come into play from November 1.  

Government sources have indicated that there would be no rethink on the decision for import licensing for these goods. Further rules clarifying the licensing norms are expected soon.  

While the move was seen as a measure to attract greater interest from investors for domestic manufacturing of such goods under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, the government had stressed that this was due to security concerns over leakage of data. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal had also assured that there will be no disruption in the availability or the price of the goods.  

However, it had raised concerns amongst companies and worries that licensing norms could impact shipments of products from international majors like Apple and Dell.  

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai had also raised concerns with India over the move in a meeting with Goyal on August 26. “She noted that there were stakeholders that needed an opportunity to review and provide input to ensure that the policy, if implemented, does not have an adverse impact on U.S. exports to India,” said the US statement issued after the meeting.  

Since then, as many as 40 companies have applied under the PLI 2.0 for hardware. These include global players including HP, Dell, Asus, Acer and Lenovo. The PLI outlay has also now been increased to Rs 22,880 crore as against Rs 17,000 crore earlier.