Released On 18th Mar 2019

Importing into India

India has always been ambitious in their role in the world, both in the financial, technological and service sectors. They want to be an internal powerhouse, wanting to entice large technology companies into building manufacturing centres, creating revenue and jobs. 

As a result, they have made their first major step toward this in 2019. India's second largest import is electronic equipment and as this drove them to introduce a number of rules and regualtions relating the use and safety of any electrical items entering the country. Goods must meet this criteria to get into India.

MTCTE certification

From 1 August 2019, certification of all telecom equipment sold or imported into India will be mandatory under MTCTE (Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment). Telecom Equipment Certification (TEC) is valid for five years from TEC-accredited labs. 

1. The following telecoms equipment imported or sold in India shall be subjected to testing, and certification and mandatory date shall be notified by the government soon.
   1. Telephone instruments, modems, audio conferencing equipment, fax machines, ISDN CPEs, radio and transmission products including Microwave, UHF and VHF equipment, MRTS equipment. 
   2. Satellite equipment, Wifi access points and controllers, DWDM equipment, Digital cross connect, multiplexing equipment, SDH equipment and cordless phones.
2. The following telecoms equipment imported or sold in India on or after 1st April 2019 shall be subjected to testing and certification as:
   1. GPON equipment, DSL equipment, IP Terminal, PABX, Media Gateway, Signalling Gateway, SBC, Soft Switch, Mobile Devices, BTS, Repeater, Compact Cellular Network, Router, LAN Switches 
   2. IoT Devices and any other Telecom equipment not indicated in paragraph 1.

Any Original Equipment Manufacturer who wishes to sell, import, or use any telecom equipment in India, shall have to obtain a Certificate from TEC and mark or affix the equipment with appropriate Certification label.

Certification is required once for each model, applicable for any quantity, and is valid for five years.  

Responsibility for mandatory testing

It  shall  be  the  responsibility  of  the  Original  Equipment Manufacturer  in  India  for getting  the  mandatory  testing  and  certification  done  before  sale  of  the equipment  in India and  to  print  the  details as  prescribed  by  the authority such  as  specification, warning and certificate number and its validity on the outside body of the equipment.

Responsibility of importer 

It shall be the responsibility of the Importer to offer the equipment with the certification completed.

Recertification of telecom equipment

When an item of equipment has been certified, the Original Equipment Manufacturer shall not be required to get the equipment certified again, provided that the model or brand of such equipment is not different in any manner from the one which has been certified and shall carry details of certification on the body of the equipment as prescribed by the authority.

The scope of Essential Requirement is also being extended to “Network Security Systems” i.e. Firewall, Unified Threat Management (UTM), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) for which mandatory testing and certification from TEC is mandatory.

Importers of telecom equipment to India can read the full MTCTE Procedures here. 

Mouse & Bear fully expect this to have an impact on customers’ ability to import into India, depending on how prepared vendors are for these new import requirements. For equipment that does have the new certification, checks may delay the clearance process initially. 

Please contact us for information about how we can help streamline your imports to India.