Jan 17, 2023
The government has exempted customs duty on
imports of Covid-19 vaccines till March 31, 2023 in a bid to ensure domestic
availability amid fears of a surge in coronavirus infections. In a
notification, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said Covid
vaccines, when imported into India by central government or state governments,
would be exempt from the whole of customs duty from January 14, 2023 till March
31, 2023.
The government had, in April 2021, first exempted Covid-19 vaccines from 10 per
cent customs duty. The exemption was extended several times till June 2022.
With new variants causing significant rise in daily case load in certain
countries, including neighbouring China, the government had re-introduced
certain precautionary measures, like random passenger testing at airports and
genome sequencing, to check Covid spread in India.