Shree Kumar| & Pranay Kotasthane
‘Make in India’ was launched with much fanfare a decade ago, with the mission of making India a global hub for manufacturing, design, and innovation. However, over the years, the mission has floundered, thanks to many hit-wicket policies such as the recently withdrawn Chip Import Monitoring System (CHIMS).
To understand CHIMS, picture a census and import control rolled into one regulation. Launched in October 2021, it mandated prior registration of most integrated circuits (chips) through an Import Management System portal, adding another complicated regulatory layer to the existing Importer-Exporter Code (IEC) registration. Applying for approval entailed submitting extensive information, including technical documentation of the chips to be imported. The customs would clear the consignments only upon receiving this chip license.
For reasons that may never be known, CHIMS imposed an additional burden and cost to the routine business of importing chips, affecting the entire electronic design services ecosystem. In the early phase of its rollout, the scheme caused inconvenience and delays among large importers. For small and medium enterprises, startups and the general chip design industry, CHIMS was an unwelcome overhead, increasing the already high costs of doing business in India. The hardest hit, however, were innovators: CHIMS pretty much smothered their initiatives by making the import of chips in small quantities harder and far more unpredictable. While innovators in the US and Europe could buy components directly from China (despite an ongoing trade war), Indian innovators couldn’t.
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