Porni Banerjee | ২৩ জুলাই ২০২৪ ১৬ : ৫৪Porni Banerjee

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the seventh Union Budget for the fiscal year 2024-2025 on Tuesday and proposed a slew of price slash on the customs duties levied on various items.

“For customs, we reduced the number of customs duty rates in 2022-23. I propose to rationalise them after a review over next six months,” Sitharaman said in the Lok Sabha today.

She added that the Centre will look into further simplifying and rationalising the GST tax structure.

Here’s a list of which items became cheaper and what turned more expensive:

What’s dearer?
Cancer medicines – Customs duty on three cancer medicines have been exempted, thereby paving way for customers to buy such essentials at more affordable rates.

X-Ray machines - X-Ray machines for medical, surgical, dental or veterinary purposes have also become cheaper.

Mobile phones and chargers – Customs duty on smartphones, chargers, and its accessories has been reduced to 15 percent, making them even easier to purchase.

Precious metals - The budget focused on reducing customs duties on gold and silver to 6 per cent, and on platinum to 6.5 per cent. Industry officials and experts said that the slash in prices could boost retail demand of the metals.

Seafood items – The Centre also reduced customs duty on shrimp and fish feed to five percent.

Leather and copper goods – Prices slashed for leather goods and ferro nickel and blister copper as well.


What turned costlier?
Telecom – The government increased the customs duty to 15 percent from 10 percent on specified telecom equipment.

Plastics – The price for non-biodegradable plastic items also increased by 25 percent.

Ammonium nitrate – Customs duty on ammonium nitrate also raised to 10 percent.

Laboratory chemicals – The prices for laboratory chemicals will also see a rise.

Air fares - Traveling through airways will now become more expensive.

Cigarettes - The government has also imposed a hike in customs duty on cigarette consumption.

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