Chinese imports: Screw-makers seek Centre’s help

Ludhiana: Claiming massive losses due to unchecked imports of cheaper China-made screws, a delegation of the manufacturers from Punjab met Union industry and commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday evening, seeking his urgent intervention.
CA Vishal Garg who led the delegation said, “Chinese manufacturers and exporters are dumping goods in India by adopting various malpractices like wrong classification, under-invoicing etc causing a huge revenue loss. Besides, imports also pose a major threat to the survival of Indian manufacturers who are into similar goods. Something needs to be done urgently to check this problem. In case of screw industry, the inferior goods which are about 25 to 30% cheaper than the locally made goods are freely coming to India.”
Vishal Mahajan, general secretary of Northern India Screw Manufacturer and Traders Association, said, “For last several decades, the entire screw consumption in the country was being fed only from China and there were no local manufacturers at all. In last about five years, hundreds of local businessmen in Punjab took huge risks and set up screw manufacturing units to take on China and were successful in doing so by making high precision products and fulfilling the local demand.”
“Unfortunately now our Industry is on the verge of closure as China has started dumping huge quantity of inferior quality of screws in Indian markets by using several malpractices in the past two years,” he added.
Mahajan said, “The government and local industry are paying a heavy price due to this huge influx of goods from China as unchecked imports are leading to GST and custom duty evasion. The screw which costs us Rs 115 per kg to make is being dumped by China for only Rs 85. We demand immediate intervention of the Centre to take concrete measures to stop the free flow of Chinese screws into India in order to save the local industry.”