--- title: "Home Minister approved Make in India waiver for the NIA’s ₹4.98 crore Cellebrite licence" summary: "What a Home Ministry letter of 20 January, the NIA’s GeM bid and the Make in India order show about a one-time exemption, how one is granted, and the ₹4,97,99,515 award." url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/cellebrite-home-minister-make-in-india-waiver-4-98-crore format: Note desk: "Data & privacy" region: India published: 2026-11-10 facts_checked: 2026-11-10 author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal) tags: ["Cellebrite","National Investigation Agency","Ministry of Home Affairs","Make in India","public procurement","Government e-Marketplace","GeM","DPIIT","local content","Class-I local supplier","Proprietary Article Certificate","General Financial Rules","Internet Freedom Foundation"] cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/cellebrite-home-minister-make-in-india-waiver-4-98-crore.png --- # Home Minister approved Make in India waiver for the NIA’s ₹4.98 crore Cellebrite licence *What a Home Ministry letter of 20 January, the NIA’s GeM bid and the Make in India order show about a one-time exemption, how one is granted, and the ₹4,97,99,515 award.* Note · Data & privacy · By TechBag · Published 2026-11-10 · Facts checked 2026-11-10 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/cellebrite-home-minister-make-in-india-waiver-4-98-crore A Home Ministry letter dated 20 January conveys “the approval of the Hon’ble Home Minister for one time exemption” from the government’s Make in India procurement order, so that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) could buy one Cellebrite Premium Tool, software for extracting data from phones, with a three-year licence at ₹4,98,15,000.[1] The NIA published the bid on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) on 6 February.[2] The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), which published the records on 7 November, reports that GeM shows five bidders and an award to Nextechno Gen Private Limited for ₹4,97,99,515, which is ₹15,485 below the estimate.[3] ₹4,98,15,000 estimate in the Home Ministry letter and the GeM bid Letter, 20 January; bid, 6 February ₹4,97,99,515 contract award, as IFF reports it from GeM IFF, 7 November 50% local content a supplier needs to rank as Class-I under the order DPIIT order, 19 July 2024 ## How the preference works The preference comes from an order of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, issued under the General Financial Rules and last revised on 19 July 2024. It sorts suppliers by local content, the share of value added in India: at least 50% makes a Class-I local supplier, at least 20% Class-II, and anything less non-local. Unless a global tender has been issued, only Class-I and Class-II suppliers may bid, and below ₹200 crore a global tender itself needs special approval. A Class-I bidder within 20% of the lowest price is invited to match it. Purchases under ₹5 lakh sit outside the order.[4] The arithmetic matters for software. Licence fees, royalties and technical charges paid abroad do not count as local content, and neither do imported items bought from resellers or distributors in India.[4] On our reading of the order, a foreign company’s licence sold through an Indian reseller scores little, so a buyer wanting one named foreign product needs a waiver. An Indian software supplier should run the same sum before bidding. ## How a waiver is granted Paragraph 14 names the route. The department running a purchase, including for any body under its control, may “with the approval of their Minister-in-charge”, and “by written order, for reasons to be recorded in writing”, lower the local-content level or the price margin, or “exempt any particular item or supplying entities from the operation of this Order”.[4] The NIA falls under the Home Ministry.[2] The letter records the concurrence of the ministry’s finance division on 13 January and the Minister’s approval on a note dated 17 January.[1] IFF says it has not seen that note and has asked for it under the Right to Information Act; what we cite is the letter.[3] **Figure: The approval came about five months after the NIA’s note, and the bid 20 days later** *Dated steps in the NIA’s Cellebrite purchase, August 2025 to March 2026* | Date | Event | Detail | | --- | --- | --- | | 20 Aug 2025 | NIA’s note on the exemption | | | 13 Jan 2026 | Finance division concurs | | | 17 Jan 2026 | Minister’s approval, on this note | | | 20 Jan 2026 | Letter conveys it to the NIA | | | 6 Feb 2026 | GeM bid published | | | 2 Mar 2026 | Bid closing date as published | | Source: Home Ministry letter of 20 January 2026; GeM bid GEM/2026/B/7172473 · as of 6 February 2026 · The sources give no award date A similar exemption is on record. A Home Ministry letter of 20 March 2025 cleared 19 forensic products for the Delhi Police Crime Branch’s cyber lab under the same paragraph of the order’s 2020 version, including Cellebrite’s UFED 4PC, conveying the approval of “the Competent Authority”.[5] ## What the bid records The bid is marked “PAC Only”, for a Proprietary Article Certificate. The NIA’s certificate, headed Rule 166 of the General Financial Rules, names Cellebrite DI Ltd of Petah Tikva, Israel, as “the sole developer & proprietor” and says “No other make or model is acceptable.”[6] Competition therefore runs among sellers of one product: distributors must show the maker’s authorisation, bidders need an average turnover of ₹2.45 crore, and a reverse auction is enabled.[2] Against the Make in India preference the NIA entered “No”. It named “Shri Amit Shah”, “Hon’ble Home Minister of India”, as the competent authority, with this reason: “As no other Company is manufacturing the software with same name and specifications”.[2] IFF says every GeM bid carries such a field, which makes a waiver visible to anyone who reads the bid.[3] On the length of the licence, the records differ. The letter and the NIA’s technical specification say three years.[1][7] The bid’s model line reads as a one-year subscription and its standard fields ask for one year of updates, while its additional parameters, with which bidders “must also comply”, set three years of updates and a three-year subscription.[2] The records cover how the tool was bought. IFF reports that no law, rule or published procedure in India states when a seized phone may be unlocked, what may be copied, how long the copy may be kept or who may read it.[3] How we did this Figures as of 10 November 2026, 7:30pm IST We read the Home Ministry letter, the 12-page bid, the Proprietary Article Certificate, the technical specification and the March 2025 order as IFF published them, and the Make in India order of 19 July 2024 in the copy on the Department of Telecommunications site. The award, the winner and the count of five bidders are IFF’s reading of GeM; we could not open GeM’s own record. The approval dates are the letter’s: the bid’s approval-date field reads 13 August 2025. The ₹15,485 is a subtraction, and the view that a foreign licence resold in India needs a waiver is our reading of the order, not a statement in the letter. Neither the letter nor the bid says how the tool will be used, and this piece does not address use. Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece. Sources 1. [Ministry of Home Affairs, Police Modernisation Division, letter to the Director General, NIA (file 80016/2026/ADMIN NIA-HQ), published by IFF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QnfmEdfrJqJsFb6BDgQONflukAC8gToA/view) — 20 January 2026 2. [National Investigation Agency, GeM Bid Document GEM/2026/B/7172473, published by IFF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LRkjkKFbECbvabIFd-K0o_RCfgNr_om5/view) — 6 February 2026 3. [Internet Freedom Foundation, The Home Minister signed off on it](https://www.internetfreedom.in/the-home-minister-signed-off-on-it-who-is-cracking-indias-phones-and-whose-phones-have-they-cracked/) — 7 November 2026 4. [Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order 2017, revision (copy on dot.gov.in)](https://www.dot.gov.in/static/uploads/2026/05/2dcea4c9d16dac8330428634a661b440.pdf) — 19 July 2024 5. [Ministry of Home Affairs, order E.No.14013/06/2024-UTP-I to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, published by IFF](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cfCqzmygsr81xEHtOA14hkyqJ044jkAp/view) — 20 March 2025 6. [National Investigation Agency, Proprietary Article Certificate, Rule 166 of GFR 2017, attached to the bid](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C8cXfC_4TIkxjMKy8CROVaN2DhhNDWXK/view) — with the bid of 6 February 2026 7. [National Investigation Agency, technical specification, Cellebrite Premium Tool for Unlimited Actions with 3 Year License, attached to the bid](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DGVk5KN_c7bETFtthJNZBMl-o_c-Wcw7/view) — with the bid of 6 February 2026 **Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view. 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