Tech companies especially the ones with the Chinese connection have had a difficult time importing products or supplies in India. Back in July, the Indian government decided to ban the import of fully assembled colour LED TVs making it difficult for brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, LG and VU etc. to import TV from China.
Now it is being reported that the Bureau of Indian standard or BIS responsible for the quality and certifying product in the country, is behind the delay in importing of smartphones of major brands like Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo apart from other gadgets.
The report suggests that the applications for quality certifications sent to BIS are being held up and are taking over a couple of months to get processed. These were however processed within 15 days under normal circumstances.
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Experts suggest that the tension on the Sino-Indian border is the reason behind this delay by the Indian quality agency. Earlier the federal government had blocked a number of highly popular mobile applications of the Chinese origin or even any link with China. These applications include the likes TikTok, PubG, AliExpress and more.
As the Modi government has been pushing the idea of self-reliance and Vocal for Local, we have seen the rise of a number of applications and homegrown startups that look to fill the void created by the absence of these Chinese apps.
Talking about BIS, Reuter reports that as of Wednesday, BIS had over 1080 pending applications out of which 669 were beyond the regular SLA of 15 days and a number of them were pending from September. One of the sources quoted by Reuters stated that “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.”
Amazfit, a popular wearable brand from China that has a huge customer base in India has also been facing similar issues. TechRadar spoke to Honey Singh from the company who explained that while the company wanted to launch products in India alongside the global launch, the BIS certifications are coming in the way.
The official said that as on date there are at least three different products that could not be launched in the country along with its going official in other geographies.
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Singh also mentioned that there was absolutely no communication from the government agency regarding the delay. However, Amazfit has got certifications and the company is gearing up for product launch in the next few days. Apart from the certification delay, he mentioned that the company is only facing around 10-20% more time in importing products approved to launch already.
The Reuters report claimed that even the iPhone 12 shipments got delayed and the certification process got speeded up when Apple’s executives assured that the company would continue to expand its assembly operations in India.
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