India Budget 2023: Homegrown Smartphones, TVs, Electric Vehicles to Get Cheaper

India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2023 today and announced that the government plans to reduce customs duties on made-in-India smartphones, cars, electric vehicles, and more. The government aims to slash the prices of these goods by reducing customs duty on imported parts utilized in the production of these goods.

Sitharaman said in her budget speech, "A simplified tax structure with fewer tax rates helps in reducing compliance burden and improving tax administration. I propose to reduce the number of basic customs duty rates on goods, other than textiles and agriculture, from 21 to 13." The finance minister added that this will result in changes in the basic customs duties, surcharges, and cesses on some products.

Smartphones to Get Cheaper

Sitharaman praised various government initiatives, in particular the Phased Manufacturing program, in her budget speech. The finance minister indicated that this scheme helped boost India's phone production, which has risen from 5.8 crore units in 2014-15 to 31 crore units in the last financial year. She claimed that India produced mobile phones worth over ₹2,75,000 crore last year alone.

"To further deepen domestic value addition in manufacture of mobile phones, I propose to provide relief in customs duty on import of certain parts and inputs like camera lens and continue the concessional duty on lithium-ion cells for batteries for another year," Sitharaman added.

Prices of Homegrown Electric Vehicles, TVs to Reduce

The government aims to promote the manufacture of TVs in India by slashing the basic customs duty on parts of open cells of TV panels to 2.5 percent. Thus, we can expect the prices of made-in-India TVs to fall slightly.

"To further provide impetus to green mobility, customs duty exemption is being extended to import of capital goods and machinery required for manufacture of lithium-ion cells for batteries used in electric vehicles." Sitharaman stated. Exemption from customs duty for EV batteries will likely attract more electric vehicle manufacturers in India, and in turn, customers could enjoy competitive pricing.