NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday placed an immediate import curb on consumer-electronic devices like laptops, tablets, computers and servers and after a certain period these products would now be allowed only against a licence for restricted imports in India, which will be valid for one year.

A notification for the same was issued by Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Santosh Kumar Sarangi however it was amended a day later and said that import consignments can be cleared till October end without the need for the said license, thereby giving some breather to the importers of these electronic devices. 

Although this move will now place restrictions on imports of these items, which mostly come from countries like China and Korea and encourage domestically manufactured products, government sources have said that various factors have attributed to this curb, namely 'security risks' and a rising number of cybercrimes in India.

Since the internet penetration was increasing in the country in a bigger way, and since Indian citizens were not too exposed to computer systems, the security risks could pose a threat to the ecosystem as some of the hardware could potentially have security-related issues

The fear of a compromise of sensitive and personal data is also a matter of concern, similarly, such an issue has the potential for cyber crimes. 

The notification has said that these import restrictions are applicable for commercial trade and will not apply to baggage rules, hence, an individual can bring in a new device when coming in from a foreign country under the customs rules. 

Leading brands of consumer-electronic devices like Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung etc would be directly impacted by this move of the government and beyond the deadline they will now have to apply for more than one licence for importing their products. The government has as of now allowed for applying for licenses in multiple units for different products and the permit will be given for one year. 

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics & Technology took to Twitter to emphasize that the move is not about a return to a license raj system.

“This is not at all about license raj - It is about regulating imports to ensure trusted and verifiable systems AND ensuring India tech eco-system uses trusted and verified systems only that are imported and/or domestically manufactured trusted systems/products (sic),” he wrote.