Holding that “prima facie” all Nokia cell phone batteries that have exploded in recent times were counterfeit, the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) on Monday asked people to use only genuine accessories in their handsets and urged the government to put in place industry standards to curb “rampant” smuggling into India of such counterfeit products.

The appeal came even as Nokia India said the “10-12” cases of such explosions reported in Nokia handsets in the last few days had all involved counterfeit batteries and held that the company was not responsible for any incident if it involved counterfeit accessories or the instruments had been “tampered with” by the user.
Industry body ICA also got support from GSM operators association COAI which said none of the reported incidents involved “standard” equipment.

ICA president Pankaj Mohindroo said that while there was little chance of original batteries malfunctioning, the counterfeit market in India was “rampant” with substandard batteries that can cause “small explosions” or “bulges” in the cell phones.

Appealing to the government to put industry standards in place so as to minimise clandestine import of cheap, counterfeit batteries and also to rationalise the duties imposed on imported batteries, Mr Mohindroo urged the media not to sensationalise the matter as was being done by some channels.

Investigation
Nokia India managing director D Shiv Kumar, meanwhile, said every single incident reported about exploding batteries was being “thoroughly investigated”.

“It is unlikely to happen in any genuine Nokia product, but we are investigating thoroughly each incident. However, if the consumers are using counterfeit batteries or have tampered with their phones, the responsibility would be with them,” he said. On the issue of recall of a particular batch of batteries manufactured by Matsushita, he said the process would be completed in India in 15 days.