Digital push in Budget 2017: Duties on POS, biometric scanners removed

FM adds, India is building a ecosytem to make the country a global hub for electronics manufacturing

India has removed duties on components and devices for point of sales machines, biometric readers and iris scanners to encourage local production of point of sale devices and encourage digital payments.

"To promote cashless transactions, I propose to exempt BCD (basic custom duties), excise duties, CVD (countervailing duties), SAD (special additional duty) on miniaturised card readers and mPOS micro ATMs standards for version 1.5.1, finger print readers, scanners and iris scanners," said Jaitley in his Budget speech. "Simultaneously, I propose to exempt parts... components for manufacturing of such device so as to encourage domestic manufacturing of these items," Jaitley said.

The Finance Minister said that India is building a ecosytem to make the country a global hub for electronics manufacturing.   

"Over 250 investment proposals for electronics manufacturing have been received in the last 2 years, totalling an investment of Rs 1.26 lakh crores. A  number of global leaders and mobile manufacturers have set up production facilities in India. I have therefore exponentially increased the allocation for incentive schemes like M-SIPS and EDF to Rs 745 crores in 2017-18. This is an all-time high," he said.

At the same time, he increased duties from nil to 2 per cent on populated printed circuit boards (PCBs) for use in the manufacture of mobile phone to encourage local production.