In a move that has come most unprecedented, also stirring up worries as well the ire of all those who claim a savoir faire in technology and the ones that use it for work and other purposes, the government has suddenly curbed the computer imports that were earlier flowing through India.
It makes one reminiscent of the Make in India tag, an enthusiastic project launched some years back that acquired great publicity and actual effective implementation, which was reflected in many spheres. There is a very Swadeshi era tinge to it, when during the British rule, foreign goods( vilayati) were shunned actively and only nationally made products were encouraged. It has been seen that the current government often looks back to the history books for the past glories of India and seeks to emulate it again, a move that has been debated widely by all but the jury is still out.
The DGFT( Directorate General of Foreign Trade), the concerned authority behind this decision has placed curbs on laptops, tablets, multipurpose personal computers and other smaller variants of the same. The import licensing is exempted if only a single unit of the same is bought, including orders from online sites although requisite taxes can still apply.
The move has attracted considerable attention and speculation for the computer market has been struggling for some time and secondly, it is dominated by major international players like Apple, Dell, Lenovo, IBM etc. Electronic imports also corner a 7-10% area in the merchandise imports of the country, which aims to be a key player in the global technological arena by 2026 and a projected net worth of 300 billion.
To sum it up, it is neither a good or bad move, for this is something that can be explained better with the passage of time but is certainly one of the very interesting ones.