Friday, October 18, 2013: The revised version of the Preferential Market Access (PMA) policy has been approved by the Cabinet today, which is aimed to promote domestic equipment makers for government procurements.
According to an agency report, a government source told Business Standard, “PMA policy which is linked to telecom equipment and other electronic products having security implications has been approved.”
The decision to review the PMA came after US-India Business Council (USIBC) and 37 other associations of foreign telecom firms wrote to the Indian Prime Minister showing concern over the draft notification, asking him to look into the matter. The revised proposal has asked for the inclusion of defence sector in the framework, which was not present in the earlier version.
In April this year, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had written to the Prime Minister’s Office stating that the suggestion of a moratorium on PMA implementation was similar to “chicken and egg story”, after the PMO had suggested that issues of security and manufacturing to be delinked in the PMA policy, the report further quoted.
DoT had agreed that the link between local manufacturing, development of intellectual property rights (IPR) is justified. As part of PMA, there is “no distinction” between an Indian company and a foreign company and all companies, even those manufacturing in India will be judged on the basis of value addition criterion to qualify as domestic, the DoT replied to PMO.
A PTI report stated that the policy which reserves a stipulated percentage of government procurement of electronics for domestically manufactured items has also been given a go-ahead in the Cabinet on Thursday.
