Extend implementation of steel QC order by 9 months: Industry

An industry body has asked the government to extend by another nine months the date of implementation of the Stainless Steel products Quality Control (QC) Order 2016, which makes registration of various grades of stainless steel with Bureau of Indian Standards mandatory.
Demanding extension to implementation of QC order, the Industry body Process Plant and Machinery Association of India (PPMAI) in a statement said that the process of issuing registration, licence and stamping instruction by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is still underway and may take time to complete.
PPMAI represents capital goods and process equipment manufacturing industry in the country.

The QC Order issued by the Steel Ministry makes the registration of various grades of stainless steel with BIS mandatory.
"Despite sincere effort by the officials of BIS, there are presently more than 30 applications under processing and so far only one foreign mill is licensed since they had applied prior to the notification," PPMAI Secretary V P Ramachandran said in a letter to Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma.
All the applications with BIS are from serious global stainless steel making corporates whose products are very much needed by downstream capital goods industry, he added.

PPMAI said it seems that licensing process is indeed time consuming due to various reasons. The number of mills, which applied for licensing is high and many of them have been inspected during present month of November only.

Based on the sampling during the manufacturing unit visit in various countries, the samples have still to arrive in the BIS approved laboratories in India and after payment formalities, the samples will undergo tests, it added.
"This process will take another 2-3 months to complete. This means January-February 2017," PPMAI said.
Only after this process the foreign mills will get the licence and stamping instructions for material being ordered by customers in India which means the stamped materials will start to arrive in India after six months of issuing BIS certificate, it added.
In prevailing conditions if the steel ministry does not grant extension, the downstream capital goods and process equipment industry will head towards work stoppages which will create economic disruption, PPMAI said.