Indian telecom OEMs, including TCS, Tejas, HFCL seek govt intervention against Chinese imports, ET Telecom

NEW DELHI: Domestic telecom gear vendors such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tejas Networks, HFCL, Sterlite Technologies (STL), and others have sought government intervention against the imports of telecom equipment from China, which they say, is against the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) spirit and can dampen business growth.

The imports, running into multi-billion dollars, continue to intensify despite the government’s clear guidelines on sourcing equipment from trusted sources, according to the Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (VoICE), a grouping of indigenous telecom gear makers.

“The equipments being imported are already being manufactured by Indian vendors. If they (Indian OEMs) can match in terms of price and quality, then why should imports happen at all,” RK Bhatnagar, Director-General of VoICE, told ETTelecom.

Explaining the extent of the issue, Bhatnagar said imports from China into India’s telecom sector are nearly 40% of the total imports in the country.

He added that even optical fiber cables (OFC) are being imported although there are world-leading OFC makers in the country, such as Sterlite Technologies (STL), HFCL, and Birla Cables, among others.

The homegrown OEMs, through the association, have made representations to various ministries that telecom products with huge Chinese imports are present in the country in-spite of multiple local players, including production-linked incentive (PLI) and design-linked incentive (DLI) awardees, who can meet the requirement for “entire imports”.

Cisco, D-Link, TP-Link, Hikvision, Netgear, Hewlett Packard, and Juniper are the top companies importing equipment such as access points, switches, and radio equipments, as per the data by VoICE.

Of the total traceable imports of Rs 644 crore of access points between January 1, 2020 to April 30, 2023, from China, Cisco’s import stood at a staggering Rs 394 crore, followed by Ruckus Networks and TP-Link each at Rs 42 crore, as per the association’s data.

Likewise, imports of switches from China during the period were Rs 396 crore. Of this, Cisco’s import was Rs 283 crore, followed by TP-Link (Rs 27 crore), Netgear (Rs 17 crore), Hikvision (Rs 13 crore), Hewlett Packard and Juniper each at Rs 6 crore. Additionally, VoICE data showed that radio equipments worth Rs 100 crore were imported from China during this period by various entities based in India.

“It just suggests that the land border policy is not being adhered to strictly,” Bhatnagar said. “Unless the strongest action is taken against erring officials as suggested in DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade)’s Public Procurement (Make in India) Policy, violations will continue.”

The association has also called for a comprehensive review of the procurement process through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), which in its present state, is allowing Chinese products to be inducted in various government and public sector undertaking (PSU) orders.