Budget 2023: Smoking to get costlier as Centre hikes custom duty on cigarettes

Now people will have to pay more to buy cigarettes as the government increased custom duty by 16%. The announcement was made at the Union budget presentation on Wednesday by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

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“I propose to reduce the number of basic custom duty rates on goods other than textiles and agriculture, from 21 to 13. As a result, there are minor changes in the basic custom duties, cesses and surcharges on some items including toys, bicycles, automobiles,” Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech.

Shares of cigarette companies, including Godfrey Phillips India and ITC Ltd, plunged by up to 5 per cent on the BSE after the announcement, news agency PTI reported.

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The stock of Godfrey Phillips rose to 4.92 percent to ₹1,828.75 on the BSE, while Golden Tobacco declined 3.81 per cent to ₹59.4. Shares of ITC were trading 0.78 per cent lower at ₹349 on the bourse. NTC Industries dropped 1.4 per cent and VST Industries slipped 0.35 per cent.

Read here: Union Budget 2023: Read Nirmala Sitharaman's full speech here

Besides cigarettes, basic custom duties were also raised on gold bars and kitchen electric chimneys. However, the government reduced basic customs duty on seeds used in manufacturing of lab-grown diamonds, toys, bicycles, camera lenses, lithium-ion cells for batteries, and parts of open cells of TV panels.