Indian Steel Association seeks implementation of tinplate QCO

The Indian Steel Association (ISA) has proposed to the Ministry of Steel an "immediate" enforcement of the Tinplate (IS-1993) and Tin-Free Steel (IS-12591) quality control order (QCO).

In a recent letter, it also brought before Union Steel Minister Ramchandra Prasad Singh the industry concerns.

Tin-mill steel must qualify as a priority product requiring mandatory QCO certification given its critical applications in areas such as a food/oil packaging, paint/aerosols, battery jackets etc, the ISA said. Around 70-75% of tin-mill steel is used for food packaging. Despite being among the 145 of 193 steel products included in the QCO, tin-mill steel standards are still awaiting enforcement, the ISA said.

India has been a dumping ground for more than 1.5 million tonnes of non-prime tin-mill steel over the last decade, leading to closures of production facilities of reputed public and private manufacturers - which are major deterrents for investments, the ISA said. Imports of non-prime tin-mill steel dumped into India is as high as 160%. Thus, domestic tin-mill producers are being unable to sustain their operations.

"The unwarranted imports and non-enforcement of the mandatory quality control order will hamper future investments which are likely to come under the PLI Scheme for the said product, as such defeating the government initiatives be it Atmanirbhar Bharat or PLI Scheme," the ISA wrote.

The ISA has been repeatedly requesting enforcement of the Tinplate Quality Control Order (QCO) for the last two years ever since it was introduced for comments on the WTO website. The last request in this regards was submitted to the ministry 29 Jun'21.

The ISA said the QCO does not prohibit imports of steel products but is only a mandatory procedure to allow quality/standard steel products to be imported and used within the country post-attaining the respective licenses from the Bureau of Indian Standards.

Developed economies have identified India as one of the major dumping destinations for their defective steel, exploiting and managing the loopholes in the respective product standards, at the cost of safety and health of Indian consumers. "More than 70% of total imports of tin-mill steel are misprints, seconds, defective and waste/waste category. Such non-prime imports are priced 50% lower than prime tin-mill steel," the ISA said.

The domestic tin-mill steel capacity is at 0.74 million tonne (mn t) which, the ISA says, is more than enough to meet the country's demand of nearly 0.6 mn t in FY'22. An additional 0.29 mn t of fresh capacity is being added in FY'22, taking the total installed capacity for tin mill products to over 1 mn t - adequate to provide for the estimated annual growth of 6% over the next 5 to 7 years.

But, despite the growing domestic market, capacity utilisation of the Indian tin-mills has been limited to barely 70%. This has been possible by even exporting 15-20% of domestic production.

MCMA demand

Meanwhile, the Metal Container Manufacturer Association recently met the Union steel minister to highlighted that the three-month extension of the BIS QCO is not helping the industry and wants it to be extended till Mar'22.

It may be recalled, on 17 July'20, the government had imposed a BIS standard on imports of tinplate/tin-free steel/products. Implementation of the same was extended up to 17 July'21.