10th July 2014

Budget 2014: Matchbox to be cheaper

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday spared the common man from price hike by keeping duties on commonly used day-to-day items unchanged but made it costlier for smokers and tobacco consumers with a steep increase in excise rate in tax proposals in Budget 2014-15.

Following is a list of what will now become cheaper and what will be costlier:

Cheaper
* Matchbox
* CRT television
* LED/LCD TVs especially below 19 inch
* Footwear priced between Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per pair
* Soaps
* E-book readers
* Desktop, laptops and tablets
* RO based water purifiers
* LED Lights, fixtures and lamps
* Pre forms of precious and semi-precious stones
* Sports gloves
* Branded petrol
* Life micro insurance policies
* HIV/AIDS drugs and diagnostic kits
* DDT insecticides

Costlier
* Cigarettes
* Aerated drinks with sugar
* Pan masala
* Gutka and chewing tobacco
* Jarda scented tobacco
* Radio taxi
* Imported electronic products
* Portable X-ray machines
* Half cut/broken diamonds