India weighs steps to steel against Chinese dumping

India's steel imports jumped by a staggering 41.3% in Apr-Sep of FY25 to 4.7 million tonnes

- Subhash Narayan

In a move to curb cheap Chinese steel imports and protect the domestic industry, the government is planning to bring additional steel products under the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) framework.

The plan also involves expanding the classification of existing steel standards to prevent products with minor variations from escaping scrutiny at ports, two persons aware of the development said.

The new standards as well as expanded definition of existing steel grades would be finalized in the next six months so that unrestricted imports of cut-price steel is checked, particularly from China, which has emerged as the number one source of steel dumping in India.

An import is said to be dumped when its price is lower than the cost of production.

"We are saying that all the categories that have slight variations from the defined BIS standards, they should be included in one of the steel grades. If any grade is still left, we have asked BIS to define standards for them so that most of the steel being imported form part standards," said the first person quoted above.