NEW DELHI: The Government has identified over 350 “non-essential”
imports — ranging from toys and textile products to footwear and
electronic goods — on which it intends to initiate a host of measures,
including an increase in customs duty apart from putting in place
quality control orders to reduce shipments into the Country and
encourage domestic manufacturing.
In addition, Departments are looking into suggestions of waiving the
requirement for global tender for Government procurement in sectors
where it thinks there is sufficient domestic capacity to execute a
contract, sources said recently. Several Ministries such as Textiles,
Electronics and IT and Commerce and industry have been asked to initiate
action on the identified list of products.
As part of the initiative, public sector companies may also be asked to
list out their requirement for products and specifications for the next
five-six years so that domestic industry knows the demand and plan
accordingly. So, if the standard changes, Indian manufacturers can tweak
their production accordingly, explained an Officer.
The moves are part of the Government’s thrust to ‘Make-in-India’
scheme, for which it has been working on ways to discourage imports.
So far it has largely depended on an increase in import duty for a host
of products, including television sets and mobile phones, which the
Government believes, has helped push domestic manufacturing. Ministers
have repeatedly pointed to the domestic production and assembly of
mobile handsets in recent years as a result of this policy. Similarly,
it has restricted the import of raw material for agarbattis, although a
section of the domestic industry is unhappy with the decision.
Going forward, the Government intends to pursue the plan vigorously and
first up will be a quality control order for toys, such as dolls. Some
of the duty hikes are expected to be announced in the budget, although
officials are not ruling out midterm correction.
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