Government taking all measures to ensure quality, price of steel are right: Steel Secretary
Steel Secretary Sandeep Pondrik has said that the government is taking all measures to ensure that the quality and price of steel are right, even as he sounded confident of the country achieving the target of having 300-million tonnes steel production by 2030.
Steel Secretary defended the 12 per cent safeguard duty on steel imports. He said ‘the government has already imposed a safeguard duty. It will be appropriately modified as per recommendation of DGTR. We are also ensuring that only quality steel comes into the country and low quality steel doesn't come only because of low price’. To achieve that, he said ‘we are bringing most of the grades of steel in quality control orders and BIS standards. So, we are taking all measures to ensure that the quality and price of steel is right’.
He said the safeguard duty has been imposed by government based on the recommendation of Director General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), who has recommended 12 per cent safeguard duty, that was done to prevent injury to the domestic industry because low-cost steel was being dumped in the country as per the investigation of DGTR. Stating that this is provisional duty that will be applicable for 200 days, he said in the meanwhile DGTR will finalise its investigation, give its final findings to the government and based on that government will take a decision on the rate of the duty as well as the period of the duty up to which it will be implemented.
He further said the government is working on an international cooperation strategy to promote the Indian steel industry by encouraging them to open offices and acquire mining assets abroad and also collaborate on technology. He added ‘so we are now encouraging our companies to become international players rather than being only domestic players’.
