Since the India-China clash at the border in June, India has tightened the quality control on the import of electronic goods from its neighbouring countries. These imports include smartphones and other offerings by tech majors like Apple and Xiaomi.
The delay in the import is now highlighted in a new?Reuters report?that cites industry sources confirming the same. As per the report, the applications that were previously processed within 15 days, are now taking up to two months or longer.
The delay is being caused by late approvals from the quality control agency, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), since August. BIS started delaying approvals for China-made imports of devices like smartphones, smartwatches and laptops.
The delay comes after India¡¯s decision to cut down on investments being made in the country by Chinese firms. In a move aligned with this, India also banned hundreds of Chinese mobile apps, including those from tech giants like Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance. The most recent ban on the apps was placed on Tuesday, listing 43 more apps which are no longer accessible in the country.
BIS¡¯ registration process requires certain electronic goods, whether imported or locally made, to meet certain quality standards. BIS thus approves these applications only after the companies get their products tested in a certified laboratory.
The Reuters report mentions that a total of 1,080 of such applications to BIS for laptops, tablets and other devices were pending, 669 of these have been waiting more than 20 days. Some have even been pending since September.
The delays from the BIS have affected the supply chain of Apple iPhones, other smartphones, smartwatches from makers like Xiaomi and Oppo and even television sets from Xiaomi and Samsung.
"While the BIS is delaying approvals for products like smartwatches, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is pushing companies to make these devices in India," said one of the sources cited in the report.