New Delhi: Moving away from his earlier stand, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has announced excise and customs duty concessions on various items, even as the Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Finance Bill.
Bowing to demands from various sections, Chidambaram has announced duty cuts on items like cement, biscuits, soya, bidis and polished diamonds.
Though the Finance Minister ruled out any further sops in indirect taxes apart from the ones announced in the Budget speech, he further announced duty cuts in nickel, iron ore fines, zip fasteners, N-paraffin and aircraft for training purposes.
He also promised to check inflation at below 4.5 per cent with a mix of fiscal, monetary and supply side measures.
Replying to the discussion on the Finance Bill, Chidambaram said Fringe Benefit Tax on stock options to employees would continue with some modifications in calculating the tax liability.
He announced levy of 12 per cent excise duty on retail sales price of cement sold at over Rs 190 a bag of 50 kg against the earlier proposed Rs 600 per tonne.
The new measure, the Finance Minister said would result in reduction of up to Rs 7 a bag. However, the lower duty of Rs 350 a tonne announced in the Budget for a cement bag sold up to Rs 190 would continue, he said.
The Finance Minister also extended tax concessions for investment by venture capital undertakings to infrastructure sector projects.
To encourage investment in rural development projects, he also extended the income tax benefits, currently given to REC and NHAI bonds, to NABARD Rural Bonds.
He also announced reduction in Budget proposal of excise duty on non-machine made bidis to Rs 2 per thousand from Rs 4, proposed in the Budget.
"Average inflation in 2006-07 was 5.4 per cent. In Government's view, this is high, and requires to be contained below 4.5 per cent," as quoted by PTI, Chidambaram said in reply to the debate.
The Bill would now go to Rajya Sabha for approval.
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