Wallets of salaried-class consumers worst hit

The Union Budget of 2018 presented by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Thursday comes as a major setback, especially for the middle class as it makes majority of essential products costlier. The wallets of the middle class consumers would be worst hit by the announcements made by the Finance Minister hiking prices of mobiles, TV sets, perfumes, jewellery, wrist watches, furniture and many to add the list.

The finance minister Arun Jaitley announced a hike of 20 per cent in the customs duty to be levied on import of mobile phones. This means, the prices of mobile phones are obviously going to skyrocket.

According to Himanshu Seksaria, Director of Sektra Marketing services, this move of the government is intend to promote Indian manufacturing companies. He said, “The high-end mobile companies are now going to be costlier as they are usually imported or are manufactured by foreign-based companies. It can be said that the government has focused on its Make In India scheme and has levied the custom duty on mobile phones and other products, which would be imported.”

The move seems to have not gone down well with potential consumers of these products. One such consumer from Mahim, Sheetal Sukhani said, “I was planning to change my cell phone but now with this hike in the customs duty is compelling me to think twice before purchasing the cell phone since I wanted to buy some high-end brand.”

“We have purchased a new flat and were about to order new furniture before moving in it. But now, since the prices of furniture are announced to be costlier, I am planning to use my old furniture only,” Ashraf Sayed, a Bandra resident said.

While the costs of only imported products is expected to rise and not the ones which are manufactured in the country, but still the consumers prefer the imported products over the in-house ones.