Apex industry body Assocham has urged the centre to impose 30% export duty on iron ore pellets, fines and lumps with immediate effect to discourage circumvention of export duty and increase iron ore availability for domestic steel industry.
“The iron ore production in India has plummeted significantly by 14% to 70MT in the first half of 2013-14 from the level of 82MT in the corresponding period last year,” it said in a communication addressed to the union finance minister P. Chidambaram.
“The rampant exports of iron ore have made it a rare commodity for the domestic iron and steel industry as exports of iron ore surged by a whopping 129% to 5.33MT in Q2 of the ongoing financial year 2013-14 from 2.33MT in Q1,” it said.