Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha today. She announced a Rs 20,000 crore nuclear mission to advance the energy transition and duty exemption on critical minerals and capital goods for electric vehicles.
In fact, presenting her eighth consecutive budget in the Lok Sabha on Saturday, the Finance Minister announced the Nuclear Energy Mission for Developed India to develop at least 100 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2047.
He said that this mission is necessary for energy transition efforts. For active participation with the private sector to achieve this goal, amendments will be made in the Atomic Energy Act and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act.
Why is it necessary to promote nuclear energy?
Let us tell you that at present it is important to promote nuclear energy as it can replace coal as the base load for the power sector in India. A Nuclear Energy Mission will be set up for research and development of small modular reactors (SMRs) with an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore. At least five indigenously developed SMRs will be operational by 2033.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that in the July 2024 Budget, she had fully exempted basic customs duty on 25 critical minerals that are not domestically available. She had also reduced the BCD of 2 other such minerals to promote their processing by MSMEs.
What did Nirmala Sitharaman say?
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that now I propose to fully exempt cobalt powder and waste, scrap of lithium-ion batteries, lead, zinc and 12 other critical minerals. This will help ensure their availability for manufacturing in India and promote more employment for our youth.
At the same time, to promote electric vehicles (EVs), she said that 35 additional capital goods for EV battery manufacturing and 28 additional capital goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing have been exempted from duty. She said this will boost domestic manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for both mobile phones and electric vehicles.
National Manufacturing Mission to be set up
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also announced the setting up of a National Manufacturing Mission covering small, medium and large industries to advance ‘Make in India’ by providing policy support, implementation roadmap, governance and monitoring framework for central ministries and states.
She said given our commitment to climate-friendly growth, the mission will also support clean tech manufacturing.
It will aim to improve domestic value addition and build our ecosystem for solar PV cells, EV batteries, motors and controllers, electrolysers, wind turbines, very high voltage transmission equipment and grid scale batteries.
