New Delhi, 20th January 2020: India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA) in a letter to Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Hon’ble Minister of Finance had requested the government to reduce the GST and remove BCD on air Purifiers dated 22nd July 2019.
“It has always been ICEA’s endeavour to improve the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and lessen the burden on the industry to make it more competitive. Both BCD (Basic Customs Duty) and GST for Air Purifiers must be on the lines of the GST for essential medicine. The reduction in price will increase market demand and bring in economics of scale. Further, we would like to highlight that GST is exempted on life-saving drugs and GST on medical devices is either 5% or 12% with an exception to hearing aids which are at 0% (Annexure II). Lifesaving medicines are at zero duty. We would request the council to consider Air Purifiers as a device that helps in breathing fresh air and fights the air toxins, making it a device for the well-being of the health. Therefore, we propose that the BCD of 7.5% to be cut to zero and GST for Air Purifiers be reduced to 5% from the current 18%. These measures will give the boost to demand and thus help save lives. Once the usage is broadened, we can introduce duty on the lines of mobile phones experience. We now have basic duty of 20% plus GST of 12% on the item and manufacturing has picked up, says Mr. Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman of India Cellular & Electronics Association.
Further, Mr. Mohindroo added, “In order to increase the market size for Air purifiers we need to follow a similar model as was used for mobile phones (the duty was reduced to zero and tax and VAT was brought down to minimum). This measure helped in growing the market sizabl”.
