The Indian government has allocated ₹3.71 lakh crore for food and fertilizer subsidies in the 2025-26 fiscal year, marking a 0.70% increase from the previous year. This includes ₹2,03,420 crore for food subsidies and ₹1.67 lakh crore for fertilizers. The food subsidy allocation is higher than the revised estimate of ₹1,97,420 crore for 2024-25, though slightly below the ₹2.11 lakh crore spent in 2023-24.
On February 1, 2025, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for the fiscal year 2025-26, introducing several changes in customs duties that will affect the prices of various goods.
Items Becoming Cheaper:
- Life-Saving Drugs: The government has fully exempted 36 life-saving drugs, including those used for cancer and other chronic diseases, from basic customs duties.
- Electronic Goods: The customs duty on open cells for interactive flat panel displays, touch glass sheets, and touch sensors for LED/LCD TVs has been reduced from 15% to 5%.
- Electric Vehicle (EV) and Mobile Phone Batteries: The list of exempted capital goods now includes 35 items for EV battery production and 28 for mobile phone battery production.
- Fish and Seafood: The customs duty on frozen fish paste (surimi) has been reduced from 30% to 5%, and on fish hydrolysate for aquatic feed from 15% to 5%.
- Synthetic Flavouring Essences: The customs duty on mixtures of odoriferous substances used in the food and drink industries has been reduced from 100% to 20%.
- Critical Minerals: Customs duties on 25 critical minerals, including lithium, copper, cobalt, and rare earth elements, have been fully exempted to support sectors like nuclear energy, renewable energy, space, defense, telecommunications, and high-tech electronics.
- Wet Blue Leather: The customs duty on wet blue leather has been reduced from 10% to nil.
- Shuttleless Looms: The customs duty on rapier looms and air jet looms for the textile industry has been reduced from 7.5% to nil.
- Mobile Equipment: The customs duty on inputs/sub-parts of camera modules, connectors, wired headsets, microphones, receivers, USB cables, and fingerprint readers/sensors for mobile phones has been reduced from 2.5% to nil.
- Space Satellite Equipment: The customs duty on goods used in building launch vehicles, launching satellites, and ground installations for satellites, including spares and consumables, has been reduced to nil.
- Shipbuilding: The exemption on customs duty for ships and their parts has been extended for an additional 10 years.
- Motorcycle Imports: The customs duty on motorcycles with engine capacities not exceeding 1,600 CC has been reduced to 40%, with further reductions for semi-knocked down and completely knocked down units.
Items Becoming Costlier:
- Knitted Fabrics: The customs duty has been increased from 10% to 20%.
- Interactive Flat Displays: The customs duty has been increased from 10% to 20%.
- Social Welfare Surcharge: The exemption on 82 tariff lines currently under cess has been removed.
These adjustments aim to balance domestic industry support with consumer benefits, reflecting the government’s strategic approach to economic growth and trade.
