The Hindu Business Line : Steel Ministry puts plant panel in charge of pre-budget consultations

THE Ministry of Steel has put the responsibility for carrying out industry-level consultations for preparing its Budget recommendations this year on the Economic Research Unit (ERU) of the Joint Plant Committee of the Ministry. Previously, the Development Commissioner for Iron & Steel (DCI&S), which was abolished last year, carried out the exercise.

Officials in the Ministry of Steel said that the recommendations from the committee are expected soon. "We expect to get the recommendations from the committee within the next two to three weeks. After that the new Minister will finalise it and we will send them to the Finance Ministry," officials said.

According to sources in the committee, the work is moving ahead very fast and is expected to be completed by the first week of June. Though this is the first year that the ERU of the panel is handling the responsibility of drafting the Budget recommendations, according to officials, everything is going ahead smoothly.

Already the ERU has received inputs from the 40-odd associations representing various interest groups of the steel industry, including those from the Indian Steel Alliance (ISA), Cold Rolled Steel Manufacturer's Association (CORSMA), major steel producing companies, ship-breakers and so on.

According to committee officials, right now the compilation work is on and within the next few days the recommendations will be drafted. "Then we will reassess them and hope to submit it to the Minister in the first week of June."

According to available indications, apart from certain steps to ensure availability of iron and steel material to the small-scale sector, there is likely to be a several-tiered customs duty structure. "There are several opinions in favour of treating raw materials, intermediate products and final products in different categories. Theoretically it sounds logical, but in the steel industry it is often very tricky to determine such categories because what is an intermediate for some, is a raw material for others and the final product for still others," said committee sources.

"But we would be looking into pre-import specifications to sort out such complexities," sources said.