Shri Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister while presenting the Union Budget in Lok Sabha on Friday announced grant of project import status to ‘Monorail projects for urban transport’ at a concessional basic duty of 5 per cent. This would strengthen the public transport system and reduce the dependence on fossil fuels.
As a measure to provide impetus to road construction activity, the Finance Minister announced grant of permission for re-sale of specified machinery imported with full exemption from import duty for road construction projects, on re-payment of import duty at depreciated value. The importer is now free to relocate such machinery to other eligible road construction projects, the Finance Minister said.
In keeping with growing subscriber base and resultant domestic production of mobile phones with exemptions from basic, CVD and special additional duties granted to their parts, components and accessories, these exemptions are now extended to parts of battery chargers and hands-free headphones to encourage domestic manufacture of such accessories. The validity of the exemption from special additional duty stands extended till March 31, 2011.
