Hand-held card machines to become cheaper; Govt removes excise duty on POS machine mfg

New Delhi, Nov 29 (KNN) In a move that would encourage merchants take cashless payments, the goods for manufacturing POS (Point of Sale) devices or the hand-held card machines has been exempted from Central Excise and CV duty.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday tabled a notification together with an explanatory memorandum seeking to exempt Central Excise/CV duty on all goods for manufacture of POS devices subject to actual user condition.

The exemptions will be valid till March 31, 2017 under sub-section (2) of Section 38 of the Central Excise Act, 1944.

The demand for POS machines has increased substantially following scrapping of high value currency notes of Rs 500/1,000 by the government with effect from mid-night of November 8.

The POS machines are now increasingly being used by the merchants, restaurants etc to enable payments through cards in the wake of currency crisis. (KNN Bureau)