Union Budget 2015-16: Customs, excise duties cut for appliances, e-goods manufacturers

To facilitate domestic manufacturing and 'Make in India', especially for the white goods sector, the finance minister has announced a series of cuts in customs and excise duties in the Budget.

Customs duties on certain inputs like metal parts, insulated wires and cables, refrigerators compressor parts, compounds used in catalytic converters, sulphuric acid for use in manufacture of fertilizers and compounds of video cameras have been reduced.

Similarly, basic customs duty is being reduced on a range of items, which include:

• Select raw materials used in lathe machines from 7.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent
• Medical video endoscopes from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent
• Telecommunication grade optical fiber cables from 7.5 per cent to nil
• LCD/LED TV panels from 10 per cent to nil

The Budget proposes to fully exempt specified raw materials for use in the manufacture of pacemakers from countervailing duties (CVD) and special additional duties (SAD).

Besides SAD on metal scrap of iron and steel, copper, brass and aluminum has been halved from 4 per cent to 2 per cent to address problem of CENVAT credit accumulation.

For inputs for use in the manufacture of LED driver and MCPCB for LED lights, fixture and LED lamps SAD has been reduced from 4 per cent to nil.

Excise sops
The support local production, the finance minister also proposed to reduce excise duty on certain goods such as:

• Wafers used in the manufacture of integrated circuit (IC) modules for smart cards from 12 per cent to 6 per cent
• Inputs for use in the manufacture of LED lamps from 12 per cent to 6 per cent
• Specified raw materials for use in the manufacture of pacemakers to nil
• Solar water heater and system from 12.5 per cent to Nil
• Tablet computers from 12 per cent to 2 per cent.