Steel Ministry has scraped the manganese alloy industry's
plea of abolishing the import duty of 2.5% on manganese ore, according to
sources.
“The matter was examined in a meeting with both IFAPA
and MOIL in the ministry by the Secretary. It was decided that we may not
recommend any change in the import duty of manganese ore at this stage,” a
source in the ministry said.
MOIL is the country's largest producer of manganese ore, producing on an
average of 10 lakh tonnes per annum (mtpa). Of the total production, 7.5-8 lakh
tonnes go to meet the need of steel PSUs and the rest is used by manganese alloy
industry, represented by IFAPA.
Manganese ore attracts 2.5% import duty. India had produced 28 lakh tonnes ore
and imported 13 lakh tonnes manganese ore in 2010-11. Exports were at a little
over eight lakh tonnes.
During the meeting, IFAPA said manganese ore produced by other domestic mines
is of low grade and high iron ore content and hence, these are not suitable to
produce the best quality of manganese alloys.
These inferior quality of manganese ores are required to be blended with better
variety supplied by MOIL to prepare a suitable composition and for use in the
production of alloys.
“In view of the shortfall of availability of manganese ore in the country,
we, therefore, request the basic customs duty on import of manganese ore needs
to be reduced to nil from the existing 2.5%,” IFAPA pleaded.
MOIL, on the other hand, stated that in the absence of demand from major steel
producing countries, foreign manganese ore producers are diverting their
production to Indian market and demanded a revision of the existing rates.
“Therefore, we are finding it difficult to sell ore in the domestic
market. We request that maintaining import duty of 2.5% will adversely affect
the competitiveness of the domestic ore producers,” MOIL said.
“It is desirable to revise the import duty on manganese ore suitably to
enable the industry to have a level-playing field,” it added.
Source: Business Standard
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