India’s ministry of steel in a communication to its counterpart in ministry of finance has sought complete scrapping of import duty on coking coal to plug domestic shortage impacting local steel mills, government sources said on Wednesday, December 28.
In the communication, the ministry of steel said that scrapping of import duty on coking coal could be part of the national budget for 2023-24 scheduled to be placed before the Parliament in February 2023.
It said that reducing existing import duty ranging 2.5 percent to 7.5 percent will significantly improve supplies and cost of the critical input for domestic steel mills.
India imported about 85 percent of its total requirement coking coal estimated at 50-55 million mt per year and scrapping of the import duty will lead to loss of revenue for the government to tune of $449 million.
It might be noted coking coal imported from Australia will attract a nil rate of duty effective from December 29, following successful conclusion of an India-Australia free trade agreement (FTA) last month.