There is no immediate relief for stainless steel sector from budget: Rajiv Rajvanshi

A forward looking budget encompassing fiscal consolidation, a stable tax regime, investor friendly and  a booster for infrastructure sector. We appreciate the government’s effort to reduce corporate taxes over a period and steps taken to create business friendly environment.
 
As far as stainless steel sector is concerned, finance minister has proposed peak rate of custom duty on Iron & steel from 10% to 15%, which would allow government to increase custom duty upto 15%. But no immediate relief has been provided to the sector which is reeling under huge surge in imports mainly from China.
 
We had hoped that keeping in view the large scale dumping taking place, basic custom duty on finished stainless steel products would have been increased and duty on input material like stainless steel scrap and nickel would have been done away with. Both these steps are necessary to align the industry to ‘Make in India’ concept and provide impetus to the manufacturing sector. We expect the government to introduce these corrective measures in financial year 2015-16 to achieve greater share of manufacturing sector in the GDP.
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Rajiv Rajvanshi is the senior VP - corporate strategy of Jindal Stainless Ltd