New Delhi: The government is considering imposing a 5% excise duty on the import of equipment used in the construction of televisions from October. This will increase the price of TVs. The tariffs will be levied on imported cells with the aim of increasing TV production and adding value to the country. “It simply came to our notice then. The price of TVs will go up by around Rs 250. Tax rebates are being levied on important equipment imported to provide relief to the TV industry. But the government will not be able to provide such benefits for long. The government thought local companies would try to increase the capacity of various components within the country.
They were therefore given a one-year tax rebate on imports. That discount expires this month. The price of an open cell phone used on 23-inch TVs is around Rs 2,800 and for a 42-inch TV the price range is between Rs 4,000- Rs 7,500. Therefore, a 5 per cent import duty would increase the price of cells by Rs 150-250 per liter. So the propaganda that TV prices are going to go up a lot if import duties go up seems misleading. According to TV companies, the introduction of import tariffs will increase the price of 32-inch TVs by Rs 400 and 42-inch TVs by Rs 1,200-1,500. Similarly, the price of a fully built TV will increase by 50 percent. The government has imposed a 20 per cent tariff on TVs, which have been in full swing since 2014, to encourage companies to produce more TV domestically. But companies are not taking advantage of it and only bringing in parts from outside and assembling it inside the country. Last year, Rs 4,000 crore worth of TVs were imported.
