According to industry observers, this is a direct fallout of the additional duty of 8 per cent imposed on all imports barring a few. They say that the additional import levy nullifies the positive impact of the duty cuts on components.

"There might not be much of an impact on prices of locally-manufactured PCs owing to the special import duty. The prices of imported PCs will, however, go up. In any case, this is good for domestic manufacturers," said Ajai Chowdhry, president and chief executive, HCL Infosystems, the country's largest PC manufacturer.

With the import duty on fully biult up PCs remaining unchanged, the multinational PC companies seem to be disappointed. They have been under considerable pressure for a while due to the depreciationof the rupee against the dollar, which was pushing up the prices of their PCs.

"At present fully built up systems attract an import duty of around 40%. If the special import duty of eight per cent is applicable to imported PCs as well, then the prices of multinational PCs will certainly go up," said Abhishek Mukherjee, managing director (I), Compaq Computer, the world's largest manufacturer. The Manufacturers' Association of Information Technology, the apex body of the hardware industry, had asked for duty cuts in components.