The industry was represented, among others, by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) president and Mukand Steel chief Rajesh V. Shah. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) chairman Arvind Pande and Tata Steel vice president (marketing), Firdose Vandrevala, were also present.

Steel makers have been selling the trigger price mechanism concept at various fora, having failed to combat overseas competition through a dumping duty so far. The preliminary findings of the anti-dumping directorate have found no relation between steel imports at low prices and material injury to domestic producers.

``Moreover the process of imposing a dumping duty takes so long,'' said top brass in a major private sector steel company. The trigger price mechanism,involves an automatic imposition of duty, once imports land at rates below a pre-determined reference price.

The system is intended to act as a check against ``dumping'' of steel by competing producers overseas. This time the industry went prepared with a presentation and a copy of the Mexican law on a similar mechanism.

Mexico has introduced licences for imports and a duty on goods crossing the borders, beyond a ``reference price.'' The trigger price mechanism should have evolved as a consensus formula at a panel, comprising members with conflicting interests.

The working group, headed by special secretary (banking) C. M. Vasudev, has the near-impossible task of recommending shots in the arm for steel producers, without treading on the toes of the revenue department or the Union ministry of commerce, both of which are represented on the panel. The steel ministry, which is the other member of the working group, has submitted a rather broad list of measures that could awaken the sleeping demand forsteel.

The recommendations range from rationalising excise and customs duties and fast-track action against dumping to financial reforms, like easy access to lending institutions and an increase in government spending. A rather widely discussed industry-driven belief is that once public spending on infrastructure projects increase, steel consumption would pick up automatically.

The revenue department and the ministry of steel, for instance, are not likely to agree on the extent of revenue sacrifices involved in the fiscal sops that have been suggested to the working group. According to some estimates in government, the five per cent excise duty concession suggested by the steel ministry alone, would involve close to Rs 1000 crore of revenue loss to the national exchequer.

By steel ministry estimates a five per cent duty cut on construction grade steel would mean sacrificing Rs 300 crore revenue, but stoking higher steel sales. Now that only three months remain of the fiscal, a duty reduction wouldprobably mean very little in the way of revenue loss to the government, but the finance ministry is unlikely to buy that argument.