Consultations soon to draw roadmap for laptop import policy

NEW DELHI : The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) will soon start consultations with the industry to finalise the contours of the guidelines for the import management system for laptops and other IT hardware products, which needs to be put in place from January, officials said.

Currently, the government has extended the ongoing import management scheme till December 31, which was earlier scheduled to end on September 30. The current regime requires IT hardware companies such as Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, etc, to only register with the government and declare the value and quantity of imports to get a permit.

Officials said the aim is to promote domestic manufacturing of IT hardware such as laptops. So far, the regime did not restrict the imports and based on the data of imports, further course of action will be decided.

The government’s plan is to come up with an import authorisation mechanism and based on the local manufacturing of IT hardware by the companies, they will be allowed to import further.

This could be a kind of credit-based system, wherein manufacturers will be assessed on three criteria: their past year’s imports, progress on domestic manufacturing of IT hardware products, and exports from India. Based on their performance on these parameters, the government may allot them credit points which can be used to import laptops and other IT hardware products.

In FY24, IT hardware imports stood at $8.4 billion against the authorisation of about $9.5 billion. Most of the imports were from China. India’s laptop and personal computer imports between April and July stood at $1.7 billion, according to government data.

In August last year, the government had announced immediate restrictions on the imports of laptops, tablets, and personal computers and notified that the companies will be able to import such products only with a valid licence. However, later, on requests from the industry for a larger consultation, it replaced the same with an import management system only to check the import data and its source, and extended the date of implementation to November 2023.

In November 2023, the government approved the application of 27 companies, including Dell, HP, Foxconn, Lenovo, Netweb Technologies, under the Rs 17,000-crore IT hardware PLI scheme.

Of the 27 companies, six started production last year and about 17 are expected to start production this year.

The government has been continuously monitoring the local production plans of the approved companies under the PLI scheme, officials said, adding that the local value addition is essential in this segment.