Consumer durables industry seeks excise duty cut in Budget

Industry body CEAMA has sought reduction in excise duty on consumer durables in the forthcoming Budget to help the sector combat demand slowdown. "The recent rollback of the excise duty has led to an increase in product prices passed on to consumers, thereby adversely impacting their sentiment and leading to a subsequent drop in sales.

"We strongly propose a reduction in the excise duty to give an overall boost to the sector," Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) President and Panasonic (India, South Asia) Managing Director Manish Sharma told PTI.

Also pitching for speedy implementation of GST, Sharma said, "Once fully implemented, GST will create a single, unified Indian market and will diminish the multiple layers of indirect taxation that prevails at present." Agreeing with Sharma, Whirlpool of India VP - Corporate Affairs & Strategy, Asia South, Shantanu Das Gupta said: "All sectoral indicators have shown that growth has stifled the appliance industry. "The increase in excise duty has added to our woes.

What we seek from this Budget are measures that will stimulate demand." In the interim Budget presented last February, the UPA government had cut excise duty on consumer durables and automobiles in order to boost the two sectors that were struggling due to the economic downturn.

In June last year, the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended the excise duty concessions by six months to December 31, 2014.

The auto industry wanted further extension of the duty relaxation but the NDA government decided against it. Last month, consumer durable firms, including Haier, Whirlpool, Panasonic, Godrej Appliances and Daikin, had announced increase in prices of their products by up to 5 per cent, following the withdrawal of excise duty sops, coupled with high input costs.