PROPOSED BUY INDIAN STEEL ACT
RAJYA SABHA
A proposal to enact "Buy
Indian Act" is under consideration of the Government. The proposal
was mooted when the domestic industry was passing through a severe
crisis caused by low price and poor demand. The situation has
shown improvement since January 2002 with the price of steel products
on an increase and a fair amount of stability achieved.
Salient features of the proposed
legislation are:-
(1) Every public
work or industry established or run with the aid or assistance
of public funds shall procure its requirement of iron and steel
material from indigenous manufacturers unless use of such material
is to be made outside India, to be contrary to public interest
or detrimental to the project and not available indigenously in
specified quality or within the required delivery schedule.
(2) Every contract
for construction, modification, modernisation, installation, alteration
or repairs of any public works or industrial establishment, which
is being undertaken with assistance from the public fund should
contain a provision that for the performance and execution of
the job, the person responsible shall use only such un-manufactured
or manufactured iron and steel material which have been mined,
produced or manufactured within the country unless it is impracticable
for successful completion of the work.
(3) Every person
undertaking execution of any contract or work or job requiring
procurement of iron and steel material from sources outside the
provision of the Act shall furnish a declaration in the prescribed
format to the head of the department/organisation/agency/contractor.
The Authority to whom such declaration is submitted, shall examine
the same and if found essential for the completion or execution
of the work, forward the same to the Secretary of the concerned
Department of Government of India with recommendation/comments
for clearance.
This information
was given by the Minister for Steel Shri Braja Kishore Tripathy
in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
