Excise duty concession to persons with disabilities

The first part of this series will cover how customers with disabilities can avail the excise duty concession on the purchase of new vehicle. Majority of the disability sector is unaware of these guidelines and many a times they are being misled by the manufacturers as well as Govt officials. This post is to shed clarity on the guidelines.

The Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has allowed a concessional rate of excise duty of 8% as against the applicable rate of 16% and 24% (a) on cars being able to be driven by the physically disabled; or (b)on cars which has been suitably designed to be able to be driven by physically disabled; or (c) on cars meant for physically disabled.

The Department of Heavy Industry has framed guidelines for issue of such certificates. As per the guidelines, the applicants are required to submit the following three documents, in original in the prescribed format.

(a) A medical certificate from the Medical Officer of a Government Hospital, as per the prescribed proforma.

(b) A certificate from the manufacturer of a passenger car to the effect that a booking has been made with them and that the passenger car to be delivered to the disabled person has specifically been designed or fitted with special control devices or gadgets, depending upon the type of disability of the person, such as auto transmission, grip assembly, accelerator pedals, hand control, etc. fitted in the depending upon whether the disability is in right/left arm or in both legs or in combination.

(c) An affidavit by the applicant, that he had not availed of this concession in the last 5 years and that he will not dispose of the cars with excise duty concession after purchase for a period of 5 years.

The necessary format can be downloaded from this link: Guidelines for availing excise duty concession.

The application fulfilling above three criteria needs to be sent to Under Secretary (AEI Section), Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Udyog Bhavan, New Delhi. You may see the record of previous certificates issued at the website of Department of Heavy Industries here.

You can also see all of these and other important links on this one stop portal here:
Excise duty concession to persons with disabilities