On August 5, 2023, India introduced a licensing regime for importing laptops, tablets, personal computers and servers. More than two months later, the Union IT ministry eased the restrictions on October 19, saying it's part of a new "import management system" and future steps will be decided later.
However, now it has been revealed that the reversal of the decision was a result of behind-the-scenes lobbying by US officials who were successful in persuading the Indian government to ease the norms, as per Reuters. The agency, which accessed US government emails under an open records request, said the officials in Washington are still concerned about New Delhi's compliance with WTO rules.
According to Reuters, the policy reversal on laptop imports is a rare move from India as in the past it did not back off on similar decisions despite diplomatic pressure. The Union government had earlier made it mandatory for Visa and Mastercard to store data locally and made Amazon adhere to the country's e-commerce rules.
Though US officials have raised red flags about India's "out of the blue" policy changes that make the business climate "incredibly problematic", New Delhi has reiterated that it supports foreign investments and its policies are finalised after taking into account the interest of all stakeholders, reported Reuters.
Just weeks after the import policy was introduced, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, during an August 26 meeting, told Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal privately that Washington wants New Delhi to "rescind the requirement", as per a USTR briefing paper.
Travis Coberly, a US diplomat for trade in New Delhi, reportedly told his US colleagues that India's IT ministry "understands they (India) screwed up. They admitted as much. American companies here have been hammering them about this," he wrote, according to the news agency.
However, Indian officials, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Reuters that the Centre did not reverse its policy because of US pressure but rather made the decision after realising that local manufacturing of laptops and other devices was not significant currently.
Union Commerce Ministry told the news agency that Tai "did raise some concerns" during their meeting and that his side had "conveyed India's security concerns" regarding the imports.
