Calcutta, Sept. 24: HCL Infosystems has put its PC assembly unit project in Calcutta on hold, following an excise-related dispute.

The company, which pays excise duty on items manufactured at its Pondicherry plant, has sought clarification from the sales tax department on whether it will have to pay excise duty for products transferred from that plant to the Calcutta unit.

“HCL has to pay excise on goods manufactured at its Pondicherry plant. Since it plans to transfer some of the units from the plant for assembling at the Calcutta plant, the issue of re-payment of excise on the assembled units could arise,” a government official said. “In case of payment of excise twice over, HCL will have to shell out around 16 per cent extra money, which will adversely affect prices.”

Sources at the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation (Webel) confirm that HCL has received all the required clearances for the project, but is yet to receive any clarification on the excise issue. The project, they say, will take off once the duty payment issues are solved.

This is the second time that the West Bengal PC unit project has hit a rough phase. Earlier, the project initiated by Webel with Wipro fell through on account of parameters related to production volume .