The Broadband India Forum (BIF) has said that ‘Make in India’ doesn’t mean assembling imported parts in the country. The forum has also critisized the government’s decision to roll back import duties livied on mobile components as it will give a wrong signal for local manufacturing.
In its recent notification, the government decided to roll back import duties levied on components of mobile phones in the Union Budget 2016. The notification brought down the duty on chargers, batteries and headsets from 29 percent to 12.5 percent (at par with that of imported handsets) and lowered the duty on populated PCBs (printed circuit boards) to 0 per cent from two per cent (instead of raising it to 12.5 percent).
According to T V Ramachandran, BIF president, “While the industry was hoping the government moved ahead with its 2015 initiative, this recent announcement has pushed the country back to the days of phone assembly, instead of progressing to a phased-manufacturing regime. This notification goes against the letter and spirit of the stated intent of the government, which is to gradually reduce the electronic imports and achieve ‘Net Zero Imports’ by 2020 under ‘Make in India’, as part of the Digital India action plan. Therefore, we request the government to withdraw this notification immediately.”
By Atanu Kumar Das
