According to a report by BusinessLine, billionaire Anil-Agarwal-owned Vedanta has imported some 12.69 lakh tonnes of alumina this year between April and August while on the other hand, over 3000 small and medium enterprises together imported 5.41 lakh tonnes of aluminium scrap as raw material for making aluminium. This marks higher import of alumina by Vedanta than the total amount of scrap shipped in by recyclers.
But despite that, Vedanta has been advocating a hike in customs duty on aluminium scrap, along with two other primary aluminium producers Hindalco Industries and Nalco. They have reportedly moved the government as well to hike the import duty on scrap from the existing 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent.
Recently, Agarwal even went on record demanding the hike claiming that India was becoming a dumping ground amid the ongoing tariff war between the US and China.
Kishore Rajpurohit, Director, Metal Recycling Association of India (MRAI) told BusinessLine that while Vedanta has been campaigning to scrap imports to tackle the current account deficit (CAD) and protect its margins, it was dependent on imports to keep its factory running.
He further said that even though Vedanta may claim to contribute towards CAD by exporting a major portion of its aluminium output, but in reality it is resulting in misuse of electricity as power accounts for 35 per cent of conversion cost from alumina to aluminium.
“When the Government is struggling to supply uninterrupted electricity to every village, we have a company exporting that precious resource by trampling SMEs,” he added.
He also remarked while globally, countries are promoting metal recycling as the most efficient way to produce aluminium, India is tending to move the other direction.
Denying virgin aluminium manufacturers’ claim that substandard scrap is being imported, Sanjay Mehta, President, MRAI, continued saying the shipments should adhere to global standards set by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.
He further pointed out recyclers are not in competition with primary producers as both aluminium alloy ingots and aluminium deox from scrap are used in automobile and steel industries.
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