"You see only three private major steel companies have not embarrassed their investors, the rest have been pulled to the NCLT," Jindal told PTI in an interview.
The government must give priority in providing raw material to those steel companies that are not facing insolvency proceedings and regularly paying interest on debts, he replied to question related to the impact of rising prices of raw materials on his business.
Insolvent firms do not pay any interest, nor are they able to service their debt and such insolvent firms can even sell their items at lower rates, Jindal added.
"If you dont meet the requirement if there a shortage then government must supply raw materials on priority basis," he added.
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He further said that rise in iron prices is very unfortunate. They have gone up heavily in last two-three months and "(due to it) we have also raised rates. There wasn't any other way by which this rise could have been evaded. We were bound to pass on the burden."
The prices of other materials like coking coal, electrode, coal and refractory are shooting up. "We have to service the debt also. We are bound to raise the rates," Jindal said.
State-run iron ore producer NMDC raised the prices of higher grade iron (lumps) by Rs 500 to Rs 3,100 per tonne for January month. It hiked the rate of iron ore fines by Rs 500 to Rs 2,760 per tonne for the month.
A company official said coking coal which was at USD 179 a tonne in the first week of November has reached USD 262 a tonne in international markets.
There is also shortage of railway rakes, another company official said.