Anti-dumping duty and the countervailing duty imposed on the imports of hot rolled stainless steel coils have caused a tremendous imbalance by making the key raw material prohibitively expensive for India's stainless steel downstream industries.

India's MSME industry has suffered a dual blow on account of no restriction of any kind on the imports of finished stainless steel products.

India is amongst the top 15 nations in the world in terms of per-capita consumption of stainless steel with demand coming from diversified industries such as pipes and tubes, Utensils, Architecture, Building & Construction (ABC), Automobile, Railways & Transport (ART), Process Industries and White Goods. These industries meet their demand via downstream products which are rolled/derived from Hot and Cold rolled stainless steel coils. Hot-rolled coil is the primary raw material for all these downstream products.

Giving an example of just one downstream segment stainless steel pipes and tubes, Mr. Pratik Shah, Director, Chromeni Steels, said, There are no less than 500+ MSMEs engaged into making stainless steel pipes &tubes in India, generating a revenue of over INR 1,000 crore a month while employing over 2 lakh people.

These manufacturers are hit by a double shock. On the one hand, import duties on HR coils have made the raw material prices prohibitively expensive, while on the other hand,end-users have started relying more on the imports of finished goods which turn out to be relatively cheaper in absence of any restriction, displacing their local supply chains. For the local upstream fabrication industries, it is now a crisis of survival.