The Indian government has extended the deadline for mandatory use of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)-certified high grade steel by the domestic automobile industry to April 17, a Ministry of Steel official said on Thursday, February 21.
The official said that all domestic automobile manufacturers had been directed to use only BIS-certified high grade steel sourced from domestic steel mills or imported from February 17.
However, all domestic automobile manufacturers stated that they were facing difficulties in sourcing required volumes of high grade steel certified by the BIS from local steel producers, while overseas steel suppliers are unwilling to get their shipments certified by the BIS on the grounds that the volumes of such shipments are too small to go through the protracted process of securing BIS certification.
Accordingly, the government has decided to extend the deadline and give more time to automobile manufacturers to get their supply chain in place, the official added.