Budget 2025: 36 life-saving drugs fully exempted from custom duty – Check full list

Budget 2025: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced that 36 life-saving drugs would be exempted from basic customs duty. During her budget 2025 speech, these drugs include essential medicines used to treat cancer and other rare diseases.

The Finance Minister also informed that the government will exempt basic custom duty on 37 more medicines.The Finance Minister also announced the launch of 200 cancer daycare centres will be set up in government hospitals within 3 years in all districts.

“To provide relief to patients, particularly those suffering from cancer, rare diseases and other severe chronic diseases, I propose to add 36 lifesaving drugs and medicines to the list of medicines fully exempted from Basic Customs Duty (BCD). I also propose to add 6 lifesaving medicines to the list attracting concessional customs duty of 5 percent. Full exemption and concessional duty will also respectively apply on the bulk drugs for manufacture of the above,” the Finance Minister.

Here is the list of 36 life-saving medicines that has exempted from the custom duty:

She also said that specified drugs and medicines under Patient Assistance Programmes run by pharmaceutical companies are fully exempt from BCD, provided the medicines are supplied free of cost to patients. “I propose to add 37 more medicines along with 13 new patient assistance programmes,” she said.

In July last year, after the Lok Sabha elections, the Health Ministry was allocated Rs 90958.63 crore in the Union Budget 2024-25. The Ministry has witnessed a hike of 12.9 per cent over 80,517.62 crore in the Budget (revised estimates) for 2023-2024.

Here is the list of 37 more life- saving medicines along with 30 new patient assistance programmes that has exempted from the custom duty:

“This notification shall come into force on the 2nd day of February, 2025,” the Finance Ministry stated.

During her Budget 2024 speech, Sitharaman proposed that three cancer treatment medicines be exempted from basic customs duty completely to help patients with cancer. She also proposed changes in the basic customs duty for X-ray tubes and Flat panel detectors for use in medical X-ray machines “under the phased manufacturing programme to synchronise them to domestic capacity addition.”