KATHMANDU, APRIL 28--The government has extended the temporary provision for issuance of type approval certification (TAC) to mobile handsets entering local market for the third time. The temporary provision allows mobile dealers to acquire the certification in an easy way without having to submit important documents.
Earlier in January, the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), based on the direction of the Ministry of Information and Communications, had extended the provision until April 25. The temporary provision has made optional the submission of safety certification of the manufacturer and type approval certificate issued by an international regulator.
Issuance if a TAC to a handset model means that the particular phone meets the minimum regulatory, technical and safety requirements. Going by the Telecommunication Act 1997, mobile dealers are permitted to import and sell handsets only after they acquire the TAC from the NTA.
Mobile dealers have long been demanding that the government not make it mandatory the submission of the safety certification and type approval certification issued by international regulator.
A ministry source said if the government failed to make the safety and international regulators’ certification a must, there will be no meaning of issuing the TAC. “A strict provision will discourage the import of low quality handsets,” the source said.
With the government relaxing paperwork, the trend of obtaining the TAC for mobile handsets and tablets has increased in the current fiscal year. In a bid to discourage low quality handsets, the NTA has long been planning to make the international certifications mandatory.
“We have proposed a new guideline on the TAC and it will come into effect once the NTA board endorses it,” said NTA Director Ananda Raj Khanal. He said the new guideline has been devised bearing in mind the concerns of customers so that they are not cheated with illegally-imported and unregistered handsets.
The new guideline prepared by the committee comprising officials from the Communications Ministry, Finance Ministry and the NTA will be kept under consultations for 15 days for collecting feedback before implementation. NTA officials said the new guideline will set the minimum threshold for battery parameter and handsets’ receiver sensitivity, among others.
Normally, Chinese handsets which do not have international brand recognition have less receiver sensitivity and such sets do not have international certification too, according to NTA officials.
Although the TAC has been mandatory since 2008, the government had started implementing the provision strictly only from the beginning of the current fiscal year to control illegal import and discourage sales of substandard mobiles. Around 30 percent of the total domestic demand is met by handsets imported illegally.
No comments:
Post a Comment