Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Steel (Ferro-alloys, Sponge Iron, etc) and Arun Jaitley
Photo: Business Standard
The Indian steel sector is of top-class which is reflected by the ranking of six of Indian steel companies among the top 34 world-class steel companies as per the ranking of world steel dynamics. Unfortunately, this competitiveness is threatened by unrestrained dumping of steel into India, as the NDA Government looks at the other side, due to some strange reasons. 


Hike in the peak rate will not serve any purpose if the dumping of steel is not arrested. It is also surprising that the input cost duty on metallurgical coke is increased, carbon cess on coal is doubled, railway freight is increased, without any relief to the steel sector. Narendra Modi, government wants to kill the iron or steel sector or what? If they are bent on pursuing the policies of the UPA, what was the use of electing them? However, the Finance portal, www.moneycontrol.com wrote on 28 February, 2015 whose authenticity is yet to be ascertained  by this blog:
India will raise the import duty on steel by 5 percentage points from April 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday, to stem a flow of cheap supplies from China and Russia.
The Economic Times, 28 February, 2015 wrote:
A major thrust to housing construction in the budget this year, and to rural housing in particular will boost steel consumption at a time when domestic demand is low. In his budget speech the finance minister Arun Jaitley proposed a roof for each family. To fulfill the promise, some four crore houses have to be built in urban areas and another two crore houses have to come up in rural areas by 2022.
It is really strange to see, the analyst who are chanting growth mantra in this budget, is overlooking these factors. Also, it was not the big bang Budget that many players were expecting or are shouting now from their roof-tops. 

That Narendra Modi is just a bundle of media created hypes, has been proved once, again by the presentation of this low-profile-plain-vanilla Budget-2016; which has nothing much to offer except infrastructure push and some long term promises. It cannot be denied that the Budget-2016 lays significant emphasis on infrastructure — roads, power, ports, rail, airports and housing; which aims to kick-start the investment cycle in the medium term. On the flip side it will create more problems for the self-employed individuals, as the service tax shoots up.

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