Budget 2025-26: What gets cheaper and what will cost more

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget for 2025-26 in the Lok Sabha on Saturday proposed to further rationalise custom duty structure to support local manufacturing and value addition, promote exports, facilitate trade and provide relief to common people.

The proposed move makes certain goods cheaper while some of them get costlier.
Accordingly, as many as 36 life-saving drugs for cancer and chronic diseases will get cheaper as they will be fully exempted from Basic Customs Duty (BCD).

“I also propose to add six lifesaving medicines to the list attracting concessional customs duty of 5%. Full exemption and concessional duty will also respectively apply on the bulk drugs for the manufacture of the above,” Sitharaman said.

The Budget has proposed to fully exempt cobalt powder and waste, the scrap of lithium-ion batteries, Lead, Zinc and 12 more critical minerals.

This will make sourcing of the critical minerals cheaper for the industry using them.
Two more types of shuttle-less looms are also set to cost less as Sitharaman proposed to add them into the list of fully exempted textile machinery.

“To promote domestic production of technical textile products such as agro-textiles, medical textiles and geotextiles at competitive prices, I propose to add two more types of shuttle-less looms to the list of fully exempted textile machinery,” the Union Minister said.

The Budget has proposed to add 35 additional capital goods for EV battery manufacturing, and 28 additional capital goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing to the list of exempted capital goods. As a result, mobile phones would cost less.

On the other hand, items that would be dearer as a result of a change in custom duty are knitted fabric and Interactive Flat Panel Display (IFPD).

Sitharaman proposed to revise the BCD rate on knitted fabrics covered by nine tariff lines from “10% or 20%” to “20% or Rs 115 per kg, whichever is higher”. She proposed to increase the BCD on IFPD from 10% to 20%.

Source: UNI

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