PMO meet today on steel floor price

S Venkitachalam

New Delhi, Aug 1: The import steel floor price is likely to be lowered now that the commerce ministry does not feel the need to refer the issue to the Election Commission. The matter is expected to be thrashed out at a high-level meeting scheduled at the Prime Minister's Office on Monday. The meeting called by NK Singh, secretary in the PMO, is due to be attended by the commerce and steel secretaries. The earlier meeting, also called by Singh on July 28 to resolve the issue, was put off.There are also indications that following the meeting the steel and commerce ministries may be asked to settle the matter to be the benefit of main steel producers as well as end-users. The issue had been hanging fire since the two notifications were issued by the director-general of foreign trade in December 1998.

Sensing that users were up in arms against the steep fall in world steel prices, DGFT acceded to a steel ministry's proposal to reduce the import floor price by about 30 to 40 dollar a tonne. But the move wasdropped and Lahiri of the National Institute of Public Policy was asked to examine the issue and submit its report. Lahiri in his report recommended that the floor price for steel items be scrapped and that on seconds and defectives be revised. While DGFT saw some merit in the recommendation, commerce minister Ramakrishna Hegde ruled out the scrapping of the floor price. The issue therefore remains deadlocked.

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