Govt rolls back plan on laptops

● laptops and computers, especially since a majority of them come from China, which has New Delhi worried.

There are carve outs for importsbyspecialeconomiczones (SEZS) along with imports of spares, parts, assemblies, sub-assemblies, components, and notified IT hardware items essential for capital goods. There will benorestrictionsonimportsunderbaggagerules, andimportof onelaptop, tablet, personalcomputer or ultra-small form factor computer, including those purchased from e-commerce portals through postorcourier, will also be exempted.

The Indian Express had reported in September that the Centrewasplanningtoloosenits stanceonimportcurbs, andwas building the so-called import managementsystemasameasure to monitor imports. Government officials maintainedthatthetweakshavebeen madetomakeitan“end-to-end” online system to monitor imports and ensure such items come from trusted sources.

India has seen an increase in imports of electronic goods and laptops/ computers in the last fewyears. Duringapril-junethis year, the import of electronic goods increased to $6.96 billion from$4.73billionintheyear-ago period, with a share of 4-7 per cent in overall imports.

Thehighestshareof imports is in the category of personal computers including laptops, and palmtops, under which imports from China stood at $558.36 million in April-may this year as against $618.26 millionintheyear-agoperiod. China accounts for roughly 70-80 per cent of the share of India’s imports of personal computers, laptops.

As per Thursday’s notification, companies in the “denied entitylist” willnotgettheauthorisations, including firms which havenotfulfilledordefaultedexportobligationsbyavailingbenefitsofschemeslikeadvanceauthorisation and Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG); or having DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) casesagainstthem, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Santosh Kumar Sarangisaid. Companieslooking toimportsecond-handgoodsor refurbisheditemswouldalsonot be allowed to apply for this authorisation.

Laptops, personalcomputers (including tablet computers), microcomputers, largeormainframe computers, and certain data processing machines have beencoveredunderthenewimports monitoring system. The systemwillensurethatitwillbe faceless and contactless, and there will be no hassles for importers to fill in their details, Sarangi said.

The Department of Revenue isalsopartof preparingthenew system, with the entire application process expected to take about 10 minutes in an automated system, officials said.