The committee, headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, has said that it is imperative to make it obligatory on the dumping company, or country, to disprove charges of dumping rather than asking Indian companies to prove that there has been a case of dumping, which is the prevalent practice.The committee has also recommended that the time taken to impose any anti-dumping duty should be compressed to three months, rather than the 12-18 months that is presently taken by the Union commerce ministry to impose any provisional anti-dumping duty.

The committee has further recommended that imposition of anti-dumping duties should be in the realm of the department of revenue in the Union finance ministry rather thanbeing administered by the commerce ministry. Legal experts say that anti-dumping charges are crucial to a particular industry's health, and the sort of time presently taken by the commerce ministry is enough to deal a body-blow to the industry.

The marketing head of a steel company said: "The Indian steel industry had demanded anti-dumping duties on hot-rolled coils in late 1996. HR coils were being flushed into the Indian market by the CIS countries first, and then by Korea when its currency crashed, and, finally, by Russian producers in the second half of 1998 after the country devalued the rouble by 50 per cent. But anti-dumping duty was imposed only last month. The time taken by the commerce ministry to levy the additional duty as an emergent measure has had a significant detrimental effect on Indian steel companies."

The committee's recommendation that it should be made obligatory on the part of dumping companies or countries to disprove charges of dumping is based on the fact that Indian companiesare often not equipped with enough information to conclusively establish dumping charges. The government, the committee has remarked, is better equipped to deal with the situation.

An official involved in defending anti-dumping charges on Indian textile companies by the European Commission last year said: "It will be a very significant step if it is accepted by the government. When European companies lodge protests with the European Commission against Indian companies, provisional anti-dumping duties are almost immediately imposed. The onus is then on the Indian companies to disprove dumping charges. The same legislation should also apply to other countries charged with dumping their products in India."

The Task Force has also recognised that as a member of the WTO, India has to keep in step with the covenants to which it is a signatory. The various limits that are available under the WTO covenants are quite adequate to justify the protection that should be provided to domestic industry, which complainsof dumping.

Apart from Birla, the Task Force comprised Ratan Tata, Nusli Wadia and Pramod Mittal of the Ispat group. Mittal's steel flagship Ispat Industries, like Tata Steel, has been adversely affected in recent years by cheap imports of hot-rolled coils.

Wadia's flagship Bombay Dyeing has been lobbying for anti-dumping duty on PTA, an alternative textile intermediary for DMT of which Bombay Dyeing is the largest producer in the country. Bombay Dyeing was also adversely affected, when in 1997, the European Commission imposed provisional anti-dumping duties on unbleached cotton fabrics.

INSIGHT
Special mechanism a must

The recession in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world has added new urgency to the use of anti-dumping duties. Dumping is defined as a situation where goods are sold in a third country cheaper than they are sold in the home country. There is little doubt that anti-dumping duties are being increasingly used as non-tariff barriers, and there is no reason why Indiashould be an exception to the trend. But perhaps more is called for. This is because the depreciation of some currencies has resulted in goods in those countries becoming very cheap in dollar terms. Proving dumping, therefore, will be difficult, and a special mechanism is needed to take care of this problem.