Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday declared that the GST on mobile phones would be increased from 12 per cent to 18 per cent . Though brands don’t have heavy impact on this, it would hit the industry and the consumers hard.Navkendar Singh, Research Director, IDC India commented , “They will, most certainly, decide to pass it on to the consumer, at least in case of high-selling model.”
It will be however detrimental to the vision ‘digital India’.The domestic consumption target of Rs 6 lakh crore by 2025 will not be achieved.GST hike on mobile phone might adversely affect localisation of manufacturing as well as popularisation of the country’s digital payments objectives.