Industry & Economy
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Steel
Chidambaram to meet steel majors this week on excise hike issue
Our Bureau
New Delhi
,
July 12
THE Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, will convene a meeting of steel majors later this week to hear out their Budget-related woes.
The industry has been crying foul over the Budget proposal to hike the excise duty on steel from 8 per cent to 12 per cent, alongside a reduction in the customs duty on non-alloy steel from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. Responding to the Managing Director of Tata Steel, Mr B. Muthuraman's observation that the steel industry was one of "naturally competitive" industries of the country, which should not be subjected to a "short-term" view, Mr Chidambaram said that he was open to a meeting later this week to obtain the industry's perspective.
The Finance Minister was also flooded with complaints from other industries on the Budget not doing enough to address their concerns. The CMD of Apollo Tyres, Mr Onkar S. Kanwar, for instance, said that the 24 per cent excise duty on tyres was excessive, since it tantamounted to clubbing tyres along with luxury items such as air-conditioners. Mr Chidambaram's reply was : "We have neither increased nor decreased the duty on tyres in this Budget."
He said that the present Government was not playing a "one-day match", but a full "five-year test match". It was not possible, he added, to deal with all industry-specific concerns in a single Budget. All these would be addressed in the course of presenting five "full Budgets", Mr Chidambaram assured.
When queried about whether it was possible to bring both insurance and pension under the Insurance Regulation and Development Authority (IRDA), the Finance Minister said that "these are very complex sectoral issues and the relation between pension and insurance needs to be studied carefully."
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