ASIRT and TAIT speak up against CRO

The Trade Association of IT (TAIT) is lobbying hard to ensure that BIS compliance is not made mandatory for IT products under the Compulsory Registration Order 2012 (CRO).

As part of its Techday, ASIRT invited Champakraj Gurjar from TAIT to speak on CRO – compulsory registration under BIS that threatens to wipe a lot of IT traders off the smaller players in the industry: almost 1.2 million businesses that employ almost 6 million people and in turn feed almost 3 crore mouths or almost 2% of Indian population.

It is important to note that earlier, ASIRT had actively lobbied with the government from applying BIS certification to assembled computers, an effort that gathered pace in November 2012 and successfully culminated in persuading government to exempt assembled desktops from BIS compulsory certification. However, government has not excluded All-In-One’s clubbing them with laptops even though they too, like desktops, sit on the desk and are assembled and customized by system builders.

With customer preference switching to AIO, government has unwittingly or otherwise, excluded system builders from assembling and selling AIO’s, kits for which are available for customization with efforts of Intel. The same is true for Rack Servers – in fact, for every other server except desktops. This will also be a body-blow to solution providers.

Gurjar, with his understanding and experience dealing with BIS and various government authorities spoke on efforts he is making to fight CRO-BIS. He says that with a major portion of industry products with rising revenues being presented on a platter to MNC and excluding the so-called unorganized sector (read, non-MNC that are not financial-power-wielding), this is a black policy that threatens to write an obituary for system builders and traders and the ecosystem that feeds 3 crore mouths.

Gurjar also said that with exclusion of System Builders, there will be no check on large companies who are known to charge a hefty margin, government is actually depriving the consumers who aspire to buy assembled AIO and SME who buy assembled servers to serve their business economically. He further said that this will be a body blow to technology adoption at Small & Medium companies.

He urged the need for industry to unite against such an act of misgovern and apathy towards our industry. As the floor was opened to Q&A, Gurjar spoke candidly about the dark underbelly of machinations of large companies and policy making as well as answered patiently questions from an audience agitated at details. He also spoke about some associations that are hand-in-glove with this. Gurjar also told about how MP Milind Deora has promised to look into and stop such an act from coming into force.

ASIRT Chariman Chetan Shah thanked Gurjar and promised whole-hearted support from ASIRT to TAIT and Gurjar against CRO-BIS marking a new era of collaboration and friendship with this initiative from ASIRT. Gurjar in turn thanked him for inviting to speak at ASIRT.