Indian import duties and Credit Card rules are not really helping consumers.

I am a blogger and I have some websites that I host in reputed company cloud servers. When I need to make a payment, I face a lot of issues as I am from India. This is due to the recent rules laid out by RBI for payments.

You ever eanted to buy something from abroad simply because your country doesn’t have that product? Nope, you need to pay a hefty import duty.

The issue with import duties:

I recently ordered some Yubikeys (and then cancelled) after I got an email from CloudFlare about a deal from Yubikey. CloudFlare and Yubikey have teamed up for an awesome deal where you can buy Yubikeys as low as $10.

This was like an awesome deal that no one wanted to miss. I use CloudFlare since its inception. I got a mail and was happy to go ahead to Yubikey.

Imagine my surprise when the import cost was more than the product cost. For two yubikeys, I would pay $53 with the offer but for the import duty of Indian government, I will pay $56. So I had to forgo the offer. Most other countries got the Yubikeys without much charge but for India it always sucks with hefty import duties.

What kind of sh*t is that? India does not have a company that can make Yubikeys or sell them without import duty. That is simply blatant ripoff on consumers who want to purchase better items. The governments import duties on electronics have made it difficult for many consumers to buy things that they need. Companies cannot launch products because they are unable to justify a product value after the added import duty.

One such industry is Luxury cars and Ev’s like Tesla. There isn’t a single company that can make such decent high range cars in India as most people will rely on mileage rather than safety and comfort. You can’t buy a luxury car in India without paying a hefty import duty(more like a fine).

The recent Credit Card payment rules:

RBI has time and again screwed consumers with rules that are pointless. When I needed to pay for something in a US website, I used to use my credit card for purchases. It was simple and easy via an OTP to my mobile.

Now almost 95% transactions are failing and I need to rely on PayPal to do purchases. What are they trying to achieve here is something I don’t understand. They think they are reducing fraud? Nope, they are making our lives miserable.

The fad of Make in India:

I am patriotic and support the make in India campaign. There are some things that India cannot simply manufacture. Since independence there is one automobile company that had sold millions of cars. It still has subpar safety and builds cars like aluminium coke cans. What have we achieved by not bringing competition to the market is something that always puzzles me.

After bringing more competition from other countries, the indigenous manufacturers will ramp up their products and make competitive ones. The government doesn’t help with this but rather relies on heavy import duties and rules to cripple foreign companies.

End of my frustrated rant!