Budget 2023: 'Made in India' phones to get cheaper

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting her fifth Union Budget, announced a reduction in customs duty on import of certain mobile phone parts including camera lens.

"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," says the finance minister.

Similarly, to promote value addition in the manufacture of televisions, the finance minister proposed to reduce the basic customs duty on parts of open cells of TV panels to 2.5%.

As a result of various initiatives of the Government, including the Phased Manufacturing programme, mobile phone production in India has increased from 5.8 crore units valued at about ₹18,900 crore in 2014-15 to 31 crore units valued at over ₹2,75,000 crore in the last financial year, says the finance minister.

While talking about gold, the finance minister said customs duties on dore and bars of gold and platinum were increased earlier this fiscal. "I now propose to increase the duties on articles made there from to enhance the duty differential. I also propose to increase the import duty on silver dore, bars and articles to align them with that on gold and platinum," Sitharaman says.

"To rectify inversion of duty structure and encourage manufacturing of electric kitchen chimneys, the basic customs duty on electric kitchen chimney is being increased from 7.5% to 15% and that on heat coils for these is proposed to be reduced from 20% to 15%," she adds.