Colour TVs to be cheaper, radio taxis costlier

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Thursday proposed exempting colour picture tubes and LCD/LED televisions of less that 19 inches from basic customs duties to increase their domestic manufacture and employment opportunity.

"The duty concession will help revive manufacturing of TVs in the SME (small and medium enterprises) sector and create employment opportunities," Jaitley said.

The duty exemption is expected to make the old model colour TVs cheaper.

In order to encourage production of LCD and LED TVs less than 19 inches in India, Jaitley proposed to reduce the basic customs duty on them to zero from the current 10 percent.

"Further, to encourage manufacture of LCD and LED TV panels, I propose to exempt from basic customs duty specified inputs used in their manufacture," he said.

In order to spur the domestic stainless steel industry, Jaitley proposed to hike the basic customs duty on imported flat-rolled stainless steel products to 7.5 percent from the current five percent.

The finance minister also proposed customs duty concessions for some solar power equipment and on machinery needed for setting up of projects for solar energy production.

Jaitley said that to promote wind energy, customs duty is proposed to be reduced to five percent on forged steel rings used in manufacture of bearings used in wind energy generators.

He also proposed to exempt raw materials and components needed for making wind operated generators from four percent special additional duty (SAD).

"Further, I propose to prescribe a concessional basic customs duty of 5 percent on machinery and equipment required for setting up of compressed biogas plants (Bio-CNG)," he said.

Jaitley also proposed rationalisation of duties that would benefit the ship breaking/coal sectors.

In the case of excise duties, Jaitley proposed to reduce it for footwear, food processing and machinery manufacturers.

In order to widen the service tax net, Jaitley proposed to prune the negative list to include sale of space or time on online and mobile advertising and radio taxis.

According to Jaitley, the indirect tax proposals are expected to yield Rs.7,525 crore.