Protect domestic industry from coil dumping: JSL

In the wake of incidents of evasion of anti-dumping duty by companies, Jindal Stainless Ltd (JSL) today said the government should protect the interests of the domestic industry by increasing the width of coils that attract duty to 1,500 mm from 1,250 mm.

At present, imported cold-rolled flat products of stainless steel having a width ranging between 600 mm and 1250 mm attract anti-dumping duty, as per a government notification, to protect domestic industry.

"...Despite the best intentions of the government to safeguard domestic industry, the very purpose of the duty has been defeated. This is so because of the unscrupulous practices being followed by certain sections of the industry to circumvent anti-dumping duty by resorting to incorrect declarations," said DGM Corporate, JSL, M P Rath.

Not only is this causing considerable loss of revenue to the exchequer but it has also resulted in recurrence of injury to the domestic industry despite the anti-dumping duty being in place, he added.

The domestic industry has been demanding to increase the width from 1,250 mm to 1,500 mm to prevent anti-dumping which is pending with Directorate General, Anti Dumping.

Sources said if the width is not increased, circumvention of duty will be easier as 1,500 mm width coils could be imported and slit to required width with meagre cost in India at the cost of the domestic industry.

Last month, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had said that it had unearthed a nationwide racket allegedly involved in evading anti-dumping duty of over Rs 20 crore on steel coils, imported mostly from a Korean steel maker.

A consignment of steel coils valued at over Rs 8.5 crore imported from Korea was recently seized by the Ahmedabad DRI unit at the Kandla port in Gujarat for duty evasion.

These coils find usage largely in automotive industry.

Customs officials at various ports across the country had been alerted about the modus operandi involving concealing the width of steel coils to evade anti-dumping duty.