Finance Minister announced that seven tariff rates were removed, leaving only eight rates.
Chennai: Lithium-ion battery and electronics manufacturing received a much-needed push with the Budget exempting 35 capital goods for EV battery manufacturing, and 28 capital goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing from basic customs duty. Though the Budget removed seven tariff rates in basic customs duty (BCD), with cesses and surcharges, the actual number of tax slabs still remains high.
Import of 35 capital goods for EV lithium-ion battery manufacturing and 28 capital goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing will become duty free. A full exemption on cobalt powder and waste, the scrap of lithium-ion batteries, lead, zinc and 12 more critical minerals, including Antimony, Beryllium, Bismuth, Cobalt, Cadmium, Molybdenum, Rhenium, Tantalum, Tin, Tungsten, Zirconium, Copper was announced. This is expected to boost domestic manufacturing in the sunrise sectors.
BCD has been reduced from 20 per cent to 10 per cent on Carrier Grade ethernet switches to make it at par with Non-Carrier Grade ethernet switches.
On the other hand, in order to check imports of Interactive Flat Panel Display, duties are increased from 10 to 20 per cent and BCD on open cell and other components are reduced from 10-15 per cent to 5 per cent. Specified inputs like chip on film, PCBA, glass board for use in manufacture of open cells of TV panels of LED/LCD TV will have nil duty.
Inputs of Printed Circuit Board Assembly, camera module, connectors, wired headset, microphone and receiver, USB cable, fingerprint reader/ sensor of cellular mobile phone too are exempted from duty.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister announced that seven tariff rates were removed, leaving only eight rates. However, part of the BCD was shifted to Agri cess to reduce the official number of BCD slabs. With cesses and surcharges, the actual number of BCD slabs remains much higher than officially stated, said GTRI.
