As per the Environment Ministry rules notified late last March but effective October 2017, the life of a smartphone has been determined as five years, while that of a feature phone at seven years.
Accordingly, handset makers selling phones prior to five years or seven years have to collect e-waste equal to 10% of the sales done in the financial year five or seven years back, while those starting operations later will need to meet lower targets of 5%.
Earlier, the rules stated that older companies had to start with a target of 30% collection of the sales done in previous years, while new companies had to meet a target of collecting e-waste equal to 10% of the sales.
The new e-waste collection targets, also known as the Extended Promoter Responsibility Plan, will rise by 10% every year for older companies until it hits 70% by FY24, and will stay at that level from that year onward.
But for newer companies, the target for FY 2018-20 stays at 5% of the sales done in FY 16-18, rising to 10% in FY 2020-2022 for sales done in the consecutive financial years. This target again rises to 15% in FY 2022-24 and 20% from FY 2024 onwards.
In effect, players such as Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Micromax will have to collect e-waste equal to 10% of smartphones sold in FY 2013-14, in the fiscal 2017-18, since they have been selling smartphones for more than five years in India.
But for Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, who entered the market in the last three-four years, the target for the present fiscal will reduce to 5% of sales in 2016-17.