Traders urge govt to withdraw steel Quality Control Order

The small and medium steel manufacturers today urged the government to withdraw the proposed steel and steel products Quality Control Order.
Under the proposed Steel and Steel Products (Quality Control) Order, 2015, government is set to bring several steel products under a mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) registration.
"We have urged the government not to implement the proposed steel and steel products quality control order as it will jeopardise the quality of supplies, cost of production and make thousands of steel manufacturers sick," Federation of Associations of Maharashtra president Mohan Gurnani said in a release issued here.
"The Order is nothing but an effort to create barrier to stop import of Hot Rolled (HR) Coil steel essentially required to bridge the gap between industry's demand and supply by domestic steel producers.

As per the proposed steel and steel products (Quality Control) Order, several steel products would require mandatory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) registration, which currently takes about 10-12 months of processing," Gurani said.
"The fact that this would highly affect the imports of hot rolled steel and the merchants would be forced to pay 20 percent more to the local suppliers, which in the longer run would affect the customers, he added.
The Quality Control order states, the objective was to control quality of steel in lndia, but in effect, it will monopolies the business and benefits local Steel mills who will increase the price and the user industry will be hit hard. Ultimately, it is expected that the steel price will go up substantially, Gurnani added.

"We believe that the quality control order in its present form along with amendments and additions proposed is not in the interest of the steel user industry, Bombay Iron Merchants' Association (BIMA) vice president Dilip Parekh said in a statement.