Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday said, ‘to cut the spiraling prices in steel, the government should impose a 15% duty on iron ore. This new duty would discourage the export of the steel and protect domestic steel industry.’
“I am not in favour of export of iron ore. Not even a small quantity of iron ore should allow to be exported,” said railway minister. He made his suggestion in a seminar of Public Private partnership organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in New Delhi on Monday.
While speaking in the seminar, minister said, “His Ministry would recommend to the Finance Ministry to impose 15 per cent exports duty on iron ore export,” and “if the implement of 15% duty on iron export becomes fail, government should bar the export of iron ore.” he further said.
“If the export of iron ore is not stopped, the country’s mineral wealth will diminish”, added Lalu.
In responding to a question regarding railway freight hiking on steel and its substances, Lalu replied, “this will not affect the steel prices and ministry has no proposal to reduce the railway freight fare.”
Earlier last week, a group of cabinet ministers became commonly agree to hike the taxes on iron ore that is the base of any industry. The cabinet ministers were gathered seeking out the differences among their ministries.
As per the cabinet ministers, the increasing duty on ore would neutralise the loss of revenue from the duty cut of the steel that would finally transformed in zero profile loss.
On the issue of railway employees, Lalu said the huge number of masses would be beneficial for it not tighten the government’s belt. Railway need the about the large mass to run it properly as its network is rapidly being more wide and dense.
Railways have 64,000 kilometer of network and nearby 11,000 trains run on the track daily under 14, 000 direct manpower strength.
In the new initiatives, Lalu informed that Railway was considering to integrate several rivers across the country whose waters would be supplied through huge pipeline networks and would be laid on both sides of railway tracks. However, this proposal is in the initial stage and if accepted could be used for supplying of drinking water as well as also for irrigation.
Lalu has also informed to open Krishi outlets on its 7,500 railway stations in entire country, which would encourage the farmers to sell their product on those outlets. The timing of beginning this proposal has not yet decided, informed Prasad.
In the presented budget on February 26, 2008 Lau has proposed to make the dedicated freight corridor projects that will now likely to gain shape as World Bank, IDBI and several other financial institutes have proposed to give financial support to Railway while Government of Japan is keen to provide technical support.
However, Railways is still considering to making its own arrangement for technical partnership.
Lalu has also repeated ministry’s target of achieving enormous Rs. 1,00,000-crore in the end of current fiscal, in the past fiscal Ministry had projected Rs.69,000-crore.
The current tax on iron ore now is between the range of Rs 50 to Rs 300 per tonne depending upon the quality of the ore.
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