The Steel Ministry in the Government of India has recently written to the Finance Ministry requesting the latter to consider withdrawal of the 2.5% import duty on Coking Coal imports into the country—an aspect overlooked in the union budget tabled in the parliament recently.
In the letter, the Steel Ministry stressed that removal of the import duty became imperative to provide impetus to the domestic steel industry, which is recovering from the subdued state.
However, the ongoing investments in Coking Coal washeries in the country might result in imports of the coal coming down by 30% in the next three years.
The import duty was imposed in 2014 with the objective of rationalizing the duty structure on all varieties of non-agglomerated coal.
As a matter of fact, Coking Coal constitutes only around 10% of the 300 BnT of coal reserves in India.
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