Mobile Handsets To Become Costlier

New Delhi: Mobile phone users would now have to shell out more money for buying new handsets, with the government proposing to levy one per cent excise duty on them.

In his Budget speech, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said: "Excise duty of one per cent, called National Calamity Contingent Duty, is now imposed on polyester filament yarn, which is the only yarn suffering this excise duty. I propose to remove that duty and shift the levy to cellular mobile phones."

"It will definitely increase the prices of mobile phones," LG Business Group Head (GSM) Anil Arora told PTI when asked about the impact of the proposed move.

The proposal may translate into a corresponding one per cent hike in price of mobile handsets. However, a full impact of this needs to be reviewed, a Nokia spokesperson said.

Echoing similar sentiments, Indian Cellular Association President Pankaj Mohindroo said the proposed move of levying one per cent excise duty would increase the prices of mobile phone sets.

When asked how much the prices would go up, he said, "The price rise will not be killing... it will be minimal."

Global cellular handsets majors Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and LG have their mobile manufacturing plants in India.

Costlier Manufactured Items Fuel Inflation Rate

New Delhi: Surging prices of some manufactured items and industrial fuels lifted the annual Wholesale Price Index-based inflation to 3.93 per cent for the week ended January 19.

This was higher than the previous week’s annual rise of 3.83 per cent, the Government data showed on Friday. The annual rate of inflation stood at 6.31 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago.

The Wholesale Price Index of all Commodities increased to 217.1 points against 216.7 points the previous week.

Primary Articles

On a disaggregated basis, the Primary Articles’ group index rose 0.3 per cent, with prices of maize up two per cent and wheat and arhar prices up one per cent each. The index for the Non-Food Articles group rose by 1.1 per cent due to higher prices of nigerseed and soyabean ( six per cent each), sunflower ( five per cent), groundnut seed ( two per cent) and rape and mustard seed, cotton seed, castor seed and copra ( one per cent each).

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The Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants group index rose 0.1 per cent due to higher prices of furnace oil ( two per cent) and light diesel oil ( one per cent).

The Manufactured Products group index rose 0.1 per cent as the index for ‘Food Products’ group rose by 0.4 per cent due to higher prices of soyabean oil, imported edible oil, gingelly oil and cottonseed oil (three per cent each), khandsari (two per cent) and groundnut oil, ghee and sugar (one per cent each). However, the prices of gur (one per cent) declined.

Textiles

The index for Textiles group rose by 0.4 per cent due to higher prices of viscose filament yarn (four per cent), cotton yarn-cones (two per cent) and cotton yarn-hanks, viscose staple fibre and other cotton yarn (one per cent each). However, the prices of polyester staple fibre (four per cent) and hessian cloth and hessian and sacking bags (one per cent each) declined.

The index for Chemicals and Chemical Products group declined by 0.1 per cent for the previous week due to lower price of epoxy resins (15 per cent). The index for ‘Base Metals, Alloys and Metal Products’ group rose by 0.2 per cent due to higher prices of other iron steel (nine per cent), MS bars and rounds (seven per cent) and lead ingots, foundary pig iron, steel sheets, plates and strips and basic pig iron (1 per cent each). However, the prices of zinc ingots (three per cent) declined.

The final WPI for the week ended November 24 stood revised to 215.6 points, as compared to 215.4 points and annual rate of inflation based on final index, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 3.11 per cent as compared to 3.01 per cent points reported provisionally.