In a move aimed at promoting Atmanirbhar Bharat, the government on Thursday decided to license the import of fully-built televisions sets by putting them on the “restricted” list.
Now by this move, it will difficult for shipments worth Rs 7,000 crore coming in from China, Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries to enter India and initially benefit contract manufacturers. It is believed to result in backward integration with investment in better assembly lines and component production. Now the curbs are unlikely to impact prices, company executives told TOI.
“The procedure for grant of licence will be separately issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT),” an official notification said.
“This is a welcome measure, and aggressively encourage more local assembly and manufacturing,” Sunil Vachani, chairman of local contract manufacturer Dixon Technologies, told TOI. The homegrown Dixon makes TVs for companies such as Samsung and Xiaomi at its local factories.
Avneet Singh Marwah the CEO of homegrown Super Plastronics that is the brand licensee for Thomson and Kodak range of TVs, said more needs to be done to make India a fully self-reliant manufacturer, to promote Make in India. “This is a much-required measure. However, if you need real value addition, we need to have more conducive policy towards component manufacturing and display panels.”
