Indian government in the Union Budget 2023-24 proposed to reduce the number of Basic Custom Duty (BCD) rates on goods, other than textiles and agriculture, from 21 to 13.
The finance minister also proposed to reduce customs duty on import of camera lens and its inputs/parts for use in manufacture of camera module of cellular mobile phone from 2.5% to 0%.
The government will continue the concessional duty on lithium-ion cells for batteries for another year in order to further deepen domestic value addition in manufacture of mobile phones.
She also proposed to reduce the customs duty on parts of open cells of TV panels from 5% to 2.5% to promote value addition in manufacture of televisions.
The minister also announced to extend the customs duty exemption to import of capital goods and machinery required for manufacture of lithium-ion cells for batteries used in electric vehicles till 31.03.2024.
Regarding the mobile phone production, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said:
The mobile phone production in India had increased from 5.8 crore units valued at about Rs. 18,900 crore in 2014-15 to 31 crore units valued at over Rs. 2,75,000 crore in the last financial year as a result of various initiatives of the Government, including the Phased Manufacturing programme.
5G Services
On 5G Services, the minister announced that 100 hundred labs for developing applications using 5G services will be set up in engineering institutions to realize a new range of opportunities, business models, and employment potential.
The labs will cover, among others, applications such as smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent transport systems, and health care applications.
