'National policy on metal recycling soon'

The central government will shortly frame a national policy on metal recycling, a long pending demand of recyclers, a senior official said here on Friday.

There would be a set of policies on end-of-life-cycle commodities and a new institutional mechanism would be framed in line with the industry's as well as the country's requirements, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary of the Ministry of Steel, said at a conference organised by the Metal Recycling Association of India (MRAI).

She said the recommendations of a Joint Plant Committee (JPC), which was set up to study the scrap processing sector of India, would be considered.

There was a need to look into import duty structure of all types of metal scrap that attract about five percent customs duty, which was making imports unviable for scrap importers, said Sundararajan.

She said the first set of policy measures on the subject would be taken up shortly, duly supported by budgetary pronouncements.

There had been a change in the definition of growth and development, which were now measured in terms of how efficiently the resources were used, Sundararajan said.

In his keynote address, Balvinder Kumar, Secretary of the Ministry of Mines, highlighted the importance of the recycling industry for the Indian economy.

When the global economy was going through recession and when resources worldwide were depleting, the country needed to focus on recycling to reasonably use the available resources, he said.