New Delhi, Feb. 1 -- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has exempted custom duties on the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for both smartphones and electric vehicles.

Speaking during her 8th budget speech, Sitharaman said, "To the list of exempted capital goods, I propose to add 35 additional capital goods for EV battery manufacturing and 28 additional capital goods for mobile phone battery manufacturing. This will boost the domestic manufacture of lithium-ion batteries both for mobile phones and for electric vehicles."

Sitharaman also announced a National Manufacturing Mission to support domestic manufacturing of solar PV cells, EV batteries, motors and controllers, electrolysers, wind turbines, high-voltage transmission equipme...