The government today warned private steel producers to check prices or be prepared for an intervention, a move that may lead to indirect controlling of prices by the government, which were deregulated almost a decade ago."We do not have a steel price control as of now but we have asked the department to devise ways to check it by talking to the private players," Union Chemicals Fertiliser and Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said here.Paswan said the move to talk to the private players was necessitated as they controlled about two-thirds of the market while the public sector steel units have only about one-third of the market."Even if the PSUs lower the steel prices, it would not affect the overall market prices unless the private players do not lower it and the middlemen are making profit from the price differentials between the PSUs and private players," he said.Asked if the move to talk to the private players regarding the prices would be the first step towards control, he refused a direct reply but said, "It is in the interest of the consumers. We keep talking to private players and the last time we had a meeting they agreed to cut steel prices by Rs 2,000 per tonne."
