Budget Gives Slew of Benefits to Local Electronic Goods Makers

From removing 4 per cent special additional duty (SAD) on PC components to imposing education cess on imported electronic products to spur its ambitious 'Make in India' programme, government today announced a slew of measures to promote domestic manufacturing.

Presenting the Budget 2015-16 in Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also said: "I propose to reduce the rates of basic customs duty on certain inputs, raw materials, intermediates and components (in all 22 items) so as to minimise the impact of duty inversion and reduce the manufacturing cost in several sectors."

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The role of indirect taxes is very important in the context of promotion of domestic manufacturing and "Make in India", he said. Some other changes address the problem of CENVAT credit accumulation due to the levy of SAD, he added. "I propose to fully exempt all goods, except populated printed circuit boards for use in manufacture of ITA bound items from SAD and reduce the SAD on imports of certain other inputs and raw materials subject to actual user condition," Jaitley said.

The government has proposed to impose basic customs duty at 10 per cent on specified telecom products that are outside the purview of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA).

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It will also exempt all inputs/components used in the manufacture of personal computers (PCs) from 4 per cent special additional duty (SAD and has proposed to impose an education cess on imported electronic products to provide parity between domestically produced goods and imported goods. Jaitley also proposed to exempt 4 per cent SAD on PVC sheet and ribbon used for the manufacture of smart cards.

Source: PTI