It was the right time to remove export duty on steel: Jyotiraditya Scindia

The government has withdrawn export duties on most steel and iron ore products levied in May this year. The steel ministry says that the rollback decision was taken on the back of a steep fall in steel exports in October.

CNBC-TV18 spoke to Union steel minister Jyotiraditya Scindia who said that time was right to remove steel export duty. “It is only after many iterations of discussions and very long deliberations that we arrived at the conclusion that we are in favour of lifting these export duties,” Scindia said.

He added that the steel industry was facing a lot of pressure on the pricing front. “We were apprehensive that commodity prices, also as international forecasters had put in place, may start rising again. So there will be multiple pressures on the steel industry with regards to pricing. So we were dynamically monitoring that and I had committed to the steel industry that we will take a view one way or the other in November, and through multiple deliberations we concluded on the view that the time has come now to remove this export duty,” he said.

However, the minister added that once they have some sort of confidence level that steel prices are not going to go on a northward trend again, then they will certainly evaluate this.

As per the Finance Ministry notification, exports of iron ore lumps and fines less than 58 percent Fe will attract zero duty while exports of iron ore lumps and fines greater than 58 percent Fe will attract 30 percent duty. Export of iron ore pellets will attract zero duty.

In terms of capacity addition Scindia said they have received a firm commitment for capacity addition of 26 million tonnes per annum through the tenure of the PLI scheme, close to about Rs 46,000 crore in terms of investment, almost creation of 69,700 direct jobs, 79 applications from 30 companies of which 62 applications have been approved. "It is very, very heartening feedback for the speciality steel sector, which will in many ways be value-additive, from a product point of view for the steel sector. So we are very positive and very hopeful. We see that capacity coming on stream in chunks as we proceed over the next couple of years,” he said.