PPMAI seeks further 6 months extension of steel quality order

Process Plant and Machinery Association of India (PPMAI) has urged the government to extend the date for implementation of Stainless Steel Products (Quality Control) Order by another 6 months.
PPMAI, which represents the country's capital goods industry, has written a letter to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Steel, saying the process of issuing registration by Bureau of Indian Standards may take more time to complete.
The government deadline for the industry was set for early February.
Seeking extension of the order by another six months, the organisation argued that "the process of issuing registration, license and stamping instruction by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is still on and may take time to complete."

On December 6, 2016, the government had extended by two months, the date for implementation of Stainless Steel Products (Quality Control) Order.
The order makes various grades of Stainless Steel registration mandatory with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

"Despite sincere effort being made by officials of BIS, there are presently more than 30 applications under process at BIS and so far, only one foreign mill is licensed since they had applied prior to the notification.
"BIS has inspected more than a dozen foreign mills in last two months. All the applications with BIS are from serious global stainless steel making corporates whose products are very much needed by downstream capital goods industry," said VP Ramachandran, Secretary, PPMAI, in the letter.

He further said that the Capital Goods industry can place an order on licensed mills as per BIS guidelines only after completion of the registration process.
Production and dispatch of BIS stamped material will take another six months after the registration process to reach the premises of the end-user of high quality stainless steel.
"If the extension is not granted by six more months to those mills which are set to receive the BIS license by end of January 2017, the capital goods industry will come to a grinding halt. The manufacturing index, which has been falling in the past few months, will further fall and non extension of Quality Control will deal a fatal body blow to the capital goods industry," Ramachandran said.

In the letter, the PPMAI has also urged Steel Ministry to ban sale of non-standard stainless steel not conforming to any Indian or international standards currently being sold in the country, which is mostly being used for consumer utensils and low end industrial application, claiming that it accounts for more than 60 per cent of Indian market and has not been included in the Quality Control order.
In the letter, PPMAI also urged the Steel Ministry to "issue exemption notice to customs department for easy imports of the new stainless steel grades not included in BIS standard 6911, saying the new grades are currently being used globally and by the domestic Capital Goods manufacturing companies for the high-end industrial applications.