Govt Mulling Procuring 50 Percent Indigenous PCs Of Total Requirement


New Delhi: Due to cyber security reason, mainly espionage, government is considering to notify new rules under which all central public departments will have to procure domestically-manufactured laptop and tablet PCs amounting to 50 percent of the total procurement. According to sources at Department of Electronics and Information Technology, it has sought views on final draft of notification to various ministries and expects to notify this rule within a month. As per the draft notification, unlike the usual practice of importing all components and then assembling them in India, the domestically manufactured laptops and tablet personal computers for government procurement should have 25 percent components produced domestically. “After the notification, as per the proposal, laptop and tablet PCs having domestically made components or value addition done by Indian companies will be considered. We are looking for local value addition in key components like processor, memory, hard disk, LCD panel, cabinet, motherboard, power module of PCs," sources at DEITY said. Since there are no manufacturer of high end components of computers in the country for most of these components, DOEIT official said that notification of these kinds of rules will develop interest of manufacturers towards Indian market which is expected to be around $ 400 billion by 2020. "There are players who do value addition in high end components in the country. Discussions are also going on with players capable of making these components in India," an official said. The notification will mandate to have domestically manufactured body or cabinet of both laptop and tablet PC from April 1, 2016 that will be procured by government departments. The draft notification says that local value addition in the laptop and tablet PC procurement will increase by 5 per cent from 25 to 30 in the second year.
Source: PTI