Budget 2025: What’s Cheaper and What’s Costlier?

The Union Budget for 2025, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, introduced several changes in customs duties, impacting various sectors. The key focus was on reducing the cost of life-saving medicines, minerals, and goods related to EVs and textiles, while also increasing the customs duty on specific tech products. Let’s look at what items became cheaper or more expensive as a result of these changes.

What Gets Cheaper?

• Cancer & Chronic Disease Medicines: 36 life-saving drugs fully exempted from basic customs duties.
• Electronic Goods: Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on open cells and other components reduced to 5%.
• Minerals: Exemption from BCD on cobalt powder, waste of lithium-ion batteries, lead, zinc, and 12 other critical minerals.
• EVs: 35 additional goods for EV battery manufacturing and 28 goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing exempted from BCD.
• Leather Goods: Wet blue leather fully exempted from BCD.
• Surimi: BCD on frozen fish paste reduced from 30% to 5%.
• Handicrafts: Extended export time period and added nine items to duty-free list.
• Fabrics: Two types of shuttle-less looms added to the list of exempted textile machinery.

What Gets Costlier?

• Interactive Flat Panel Displays: Customs duty increased from 10% to 20%.
• Provisional Assessment: New two-year time limit introduced for faster and transparent customs clearance.
• Streamlining Tariff Rates: Seven tariff rates eliminated, simplifying the customs tariff system.
• Social Welfare Surcharge: Exemption on 82 tariff lines subject to a cess.
• Flat Panel Displays: Increased customs duty.
• Knitted Fabrics: Duty hikes on these materials.