Budget 2012: Exempt all life saving medical devices from customs duty, says FICCI

FICCI in its pre-budget memorandum has given the following recommendations for the Medical Equipments and Devices industry

By Agencies | Updated: Feb 18, 2012, 03.52 PM IST

NEW DELHI: FICCI in its pre-budget memorandum has given the following recommendations for the Medical Equipments and Devices industry

All life saving medical devices, consumables used with devices in the specific life saving treatment procedure and their spare parts should be exempted from Customs Duty. FICCI has recommended that the following be included in the list of Life Saving Products:

>> Patient monitoring systems & image guidance systems
>> Pacemakers
>> Image Guided System
>> External Defibrillators
>> NT & ENT Surgery Products
>> Deep Brain Stimulation Implanters, drug pumps, lead
>> Heart Lung Machine & Oxygenators

>> Heart valves, Annuloplasty Rings and various Cardiac catheters
>> Respirators and Masks
>> Dialysis equipments and Devices (Hemo and Peritoneal Dialysis)

Custom Duty waiver for essentially required radiopharmaceuticals used in Diagnostics like Imaging and Scanning (PET-& SPECT) & Therapy some of which are even not manufactured in India like Iodine 131, MIBG 131, Lutetium 177, Yttrium 90, Ge-68-Ga 68 generator, cold Kits for Tc 99m, Rubidium 82.

Lifetime Complete Health Coverage, through insurance benefit for "voluntary organ donors & their dependent family members" on the lines of CGHS. India needs to do 2 lakhs solid organ transplants each year to meet the recipient target, which is grossly undersupplied due to the shortage of donor pool. Amendments to the Transplant Act (1994) needs to be looked at, to increase donor pool. Also taking a cue from the worldwide practice, it is imperative to incentivize and promote voluntary donors to meet the organ shortage.

There should not be rejection due to age limitations for senior citizens even with non-continuous/no provision of health insurance coverage. Also, there is a need for restructuring the premium, so that the monetary burden on the end user reduces as his /her age increases and the ability to contribute decreases. This innovative premium structuring will help increasing affordability amongst the masses.

All other medical devices used only for the life saving treatments shall also come under the same duty structure. Further presently different medical devices have either partial or full exemption under various entries in different notifications. This could be rationalized so as to bring about more clarity and less disputes from a classification aspect.

To ensure that the spare parts imported to be used for maintenance of life saving devices, are used for the same purpose, importer may be asked to furnish "End Use Certificate" within a period of 12 months. Procedure for Consumption Certificate for materials imported as per Customs Notification 21/2010 to be amended to read as "Importer to submit Self Declaration for having consumed the materials in the process of maintenance of Medical Equipment".

One major grey area that is affecting the cost factor in the Medical Technology Products is high incidence of Service Tax for Service Contracts of the Instruments which is 10.3% of the Contract value at present. This amounts to significant component of healthcare cost and should be looked into.

Reduce excise duty from 10% to Nil on locally purchased input for the manufacture of Medical equipment, spares and accessories of Equipment.

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