Union Budget: Customs duty on ship-building material exempted for 10 more years

Noting that shipbuilding has a long gestation period, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday proposed to continue the exemption of basic customs duty on raw material, components, consumables or parts for the manufacture of ships for another 10 years. She further proposed the same dispensation for ship breaking to make it more competitive.

She also said the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy would be revamped to address cost disadvantages, which will also include credit notes for ship breaking in Indian yards to promote circular economy.

Large ships above a specified size are proposed to be included in the infrastructure-harmonised master list (HML). The Budget also proposes to facilitate ‘shipbuilding clusters’ in order to increase the range, categories and capacity of ships. This will include additional infrastructure facilities and skilling and technology to develop the entire ecosystem.

Sitharaman also proposed setting up a maritime development fund with a corpus of Rs 25,000 crore. She said the corpus would be for supporting and promoting competition in the maritime industry. — TNS