The Indian government has restricted imports of personal computers, laptops, palmtops, automatic data processing machines, processors and mainframe computers with immediate effect.

In a notice issued on Thursday, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade said that companies would, with immediate effect, need a “restricted imports” licence to ship such devices into India.

“Import of laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, and ultra small form factor computers and servers falling under HSN 8741 shall be ‘restricted’,” the notice said. 

The rule is similar to one issued by the Indian government in 2020, which regulated inbound TV shipments.

The restriction will not apply to visitors carrying these devices in their baggage. In addition, imports up to 20 items per consignment for R&D, testing, benchmarking, evaluation repair and re-export, and product development purposes are exempt, although these devices would have to be destroyed or re-exported...