Absolutely why not. The grey market will survive. It is unstoppable in fact this revised rate will discourage persons like me who import on official channel and to look out for a smuggler to bring it.
Let me explain how the so called Ritchie street or Used radio market works in Chennai.
Actually the famous Burma buzzar in Chennai was formed long ago when Refugees from Burma were fleeing in to India and reached to chennai. The burmees refugees were Tamilians and for their lively hood they started selling their belongings by putting them in platform in 1st line beach road and they found lot of demand was their for their items. So they wrote to the future refugees to bring in as much as possible especially electronics to sell here.
Once the war was over and the refugees have settled here they wanted a lively hood at that time the Tamilnadu Government constructed these Small shops and gave to them.
After refugees inflow stopped these guys didn't have any thing to sell so they started deliberately travelling and bringing stuffs to sell. Later they found Malaysia is more attractive to bring the electronics from, later in the advent of Singapore opening the free port they started to smuggle from there and sell. That is how chennai has become Hub for electronics especially Audio Video.
The group in Ritchie street 4 - 5 shop owners together have a big house rented in Singapore, and for 2 to 3 months all of them travel to Singapore in batches and buy all used and new electronics stuff and fill up the Room. Once they have collected on full 20 feet container of Load They ship everything in a container and the whole container will be accessed by an officer in setting with them and a nominal duty is levied.
Now you tell me where is the scope of Parallel market / smuggling get reduced what ever be the % of duty.
In the interest of curbing Parallel imports the duty is revised but ultimately it affects only people like us who import through proper channel for our own use and for the hobby.
PATHETIC.
Thats some good info there, I've already witnessed authorized dealers passing smuggled stuff with so called Indian warranty ; they have a tie up with service personnel wherein cheaper repairs are done free of cost, whereas a costlier repairs - consumer is made to pay saying its power fluctuations etc.
Grey market will survive as long as the whole chain is not targeted. Since the Indian distributors are benefitting as much as customers, who will complain against this practice?
"Duty free allowance for bonafide baggage consisting of
Passenger Age
2. Articles other than those mentioned in Annex I, if these are carried on the person or in the accompanied baggage of the passenger.
a. if stay abroad for more than 3 days Rs. 45,000 Rs. 17,500
b. if stay abroad up to 3 days Rs. 17,500 Rs. 3,000 "
I found this on google. It appears this is still valid - but I am not sure, so while arriving from overseas one can still get items upto 45k duty free.
Cheers,
Sid
This affects me more, thanks for clarifying.
Well said Thad!. Sometimes I have this starnge feeling that we are going back in time :sad:.....
I'm not averse to paying more to Indian retailers ; the problem is they don't even offer a proper audition for their products. Everything they get is on preorder, and no audition, no service or info if needed ; why would anyone pay them a percentage for placing and receiving a order on your behalf?
Indian dealers should invest in advertising and educating the masses that there are products much better than 'Bose' in SQ at a reasonable price. And offer decent audition facilities at the least .
If you compare two countries ; There's always a give and take as far as services and product prices are concerned ; some things are cheaper in India than elsewhere. For eg Americans pay 5 to 6 times on an average for the same medicine which is much cheaper in India. This shouldn't matter much.
Though unlikely, Let's hope this leads to more people buying through proper channels and makes Indian dealers invest in providing proper facilities for prospective buyer to make a informed choice. We may not know, many retailers might be importing stuff under personal use category and avoid paying the taxes, which led the government to curb such a practice. But again none other than corrupt officials seem to benefit from such laws.
