Indian government-controlled oil exploration and refinery companies will not get blanket exemptions from the mandatory sourcing of steel from domestic mills, government sources said on Thursday, December 28.
The sources said that the ministry of petroleum and natural gas had sought exemption from the provisions of the Domestically Manufactured Iron and Steel Policy under which government companies had to mandatorily source their steel requirements from domestic mills.
Oil and refinery government companies like ONGC Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Oil India Limited and refinery construction and consultant firm Engineers India Limited had claimed that exemption to the provision will enable them to speedily source their steel requirements through imports.
But government officials said that a blanket exemption had been ruled out and instead approval to source steel through imports could be granted on a case-by-case basis only after the importing government company provided sufficient evidence that the specific steel product could not be sourced domestically.
In addition to no blanket exemptions, if steel is to be sourced from a trader, the latter will need to provide an authorisation letter from a domestic steel mill to ensure that the trader did not supply the material from imports, the sources said.