INVC NEWS
New Delhi
DIPP in its letter to Ministry of Steel has requested to give at least 15 months period for implementation of Stainless Steel Quality Control order to maintain similar implementation period without any discrimination between Carbon and Stainless Steel
“This discrimination has put roadblocks in the ease of doing business by the Capital goods PRODUCERS in the country. This adhoc decision of steel ministry ignoring the requests by DIPP and DHI has put the Capital Goods sector in difficult situation. Why stainless steel global producers were not given 15 months to get the BIS License which is minimum period required by producers and the end users of stainless steel products to align their imports with BIS certification. The biggest MNC of India namely Larsen & Toubro had also pleaded personally to the steel secretary along with Dy Chairman of PPMAI“ said V.P. Ramachandran ,Secretary General, Process Plant and Machinery Association of India (PPMAI), apex body of Capital Goods Producers .
“ Steel Ministry through their previous carbon steel quality control order knew very well that implementation of Quality control order is a tedious process of licensing . It starts with the foreign mills applying and ends with receiving certified materials from licensed foreign mills. BIS typically takes minimum six to eight months from date of acceptance of applications from global producers , planning visit to their plants, inspection of the production facilities and testing capabilities and finally testing of samples in Indian laboratory which were drawn during visits abroad and then issuance of license. Then the mills take another six months to manufacture as per BIS standards and ship them to arrive at Indian ports ” Mr Ramachandran said.
“The capital goods industry uses stainless steel products conforming to international standards only. Capital Goods industry does not use BIS standards and even the domestic stainless steel industry had never manufactured and sold any quantity of stainless steel in past years as per BIS.” Said Mr Ramachandran
“Capital Goods sector had submitted a list of grades which are not covered by the BIS standards but for strange reasons the steel ministry did not notify all those grades for exemptions. What is shocking is that exemption notification from steel ministry was done arbitrarily and many non standard grades which do not conform to any international or BIS standards were included in the exemption list. Why was the request for all international standard grades in the given list were ignored and not notified despite so many mails and letters written by PPMAI.” He added.
“ The Steel secretary had listened to our pain areas in early February and had agreed to send out another notification on grade exemptions to concerned Customs department to ensure that no problems are encountered by industry at ports during customs clearing. Once again ,for unknown reasons, the same has not been done so far. This is sheer discrimination which is in favour of domestic stainless steel producer and create a monopoly.” He said.
“Furthermore , seconds and defectives for all grades have not been banned or barred by the quality control order. The defectives and seconds continue to be sold domestically and also being imported freely. Even Non standard grades have not been barred which constitute over 65% of stainless steel used in manufacture of utensils and cookware in India . This is depriving the Indian citizens from using safe products made with zero defect standard materials. This must be reversed immediately “ he said.
“ It is abundantly clear that the policy of Zero Defect as well as Ease of doing business for Make in India for the world has been totally ignored by the steel ministry through the poorly drafted quality control order which is allowing unabated flooding of defectives, non standard products and thus putting inconvenience to the disciplined Capital Goods sector who uses only products of international standards. This has been pointed out to the ministry so many times and also written to Our Hon’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi as well as to CEO Niti Aayog Shri Amitabh Kant. But we have not been successful in receiving any favourable response from them on our difficulties.” He said.
