Centre waives custom duty and health cess on oxygen & related equipment

The govt also exempted basic custom duty on import of Covid vaccines for a period of three months

The Centre on Saturday decided to waive off basic custom duty and health cess on oxygen and oxygen-related equipment for three months in order to give a boost to its supply and thereby, address the burgeoning problem of medical oxygen crunch in hospitals across the country.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a day 20 patients died in a Delhi hospital due to shortage of medical oxygen, a day after 25 persons died in Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which was facing almost similar circumstances. A number of Delhi hospitals even on Saturday sent SOS regarding oxygen supply, a scenario that continues for the last few days despite several high level meetings to resolve the issue.

In order to augment their production and availability and to meet the rising demand, it was decided to grant full exemption from basic customs duty and health cess on import of oxygen and several items related to oxygen for a period of three months with immediate effect.

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These are medical grade oxygen, oxygen concentrator along with flow meter, regulator, connectors and tubing, vacuum pressure swing absorption (VPSA) and pressure swing absorption (PSA) oxygen plants, cryogenic oxygen air separation units (ASUs) producing liquid/gaseous oxygen, oxygen canister, oxygen filling systems, oxygen storage tanks, oxygen cylinders including cryogenic cylinders and tanks, oxygen generators, ISO containers for shipping oxygen and cryogenic road transport tanks for oxygen.

Parts of the above are to be used for the manufacture of equipment for production, transportation, distribution or storage of oxygen.

Besides, any other device from which oxygen can be generated, ventilators (capable of functioning as high-flow devices) with nasal cannula, compressors including all accessories and tubing, humidifiers and viral filters high flow nasal cannula device with all attachments, helmets for use with non-invasive ventilation, non-invasive ventilation oronasal masks for ICU ventilators and non-invasive ventilation nasal masks for ICU ventilators have also got exemption.

Read | Covid-19: Hospitals in Delhi gasp for oxygen amid staggered supply

The meeting, which was also attended by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan along with other ministers and high officials, also decided that basic customs duty on import of Covid vaccines also be exempted with immediate effect for a period of three months.

The meeting took a review of the steps taken to boost oxygen availability in the country.

Stressing that there is an immediate need to augment the supply of medical grade oxygen as well as equipment required for patient care, both at home and in hospitals, Modi said all ministries and departments need to work in synergy to increase availability of oxygen and medical supplies.

The PM was briefed that basic customs duty was exempted on Remdesivir and its API recently. It was suggested that import of equipment related to providing oxygen to patients needs to be expedited as this will boost availability of these items as well as make them cheaper.

After the PM directed the Revenue Department to ensure seamless and quick custom clearance of such equipment, the department decided to nominate Gaurav Masaldan, Joint Secretary, Customs, as the nodal officer for issues related to customs clearance for the above mentioned items.

The meeting was also attended by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, Principal Secretary to the PM P K Mishra, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, Member NITI Aayog and Secretaries of the department of Revenue, Health and DPIIT & others.