Gujarat: Slowdown now hits Induction Furnace Industry, 7,000 workers go jobless

Addressing a press conference here president of the association Inamul Haq Iraki said that of the total 150 steel induction furnace units that produced 60 to 70 thousand tonnes of ingots or billets per day, 50 have shut down in last three months due to heavy demand slump and some other issues.

'Now the production has also come down to almost one fourth at 15 to 20 thousand tonnes per day. Due to the shutting down of the 50 units, almost 7,000 on-roll workers have become jobless. 50 more units are in a very shaky situation and might shut down in the coming days. Most of the shut units are of small or medium category. There were a total of 50 to 60 thousand workers employed in the induction furnace units in the state,' he further said.

Mr Iraki stated that it was high time that the government should come forward to bailout the industry from this difficult situation.

'Our industry is power intensive ie., it uses power in large quantity and power is like a raw material for us. We have demanded the state government to exempt the electricity duty for our industry for five years and package should be allotted to the induction furnace Industry in power units. This will also guard the Gujarat units from those of Maharashtra and MP who get power at a lesser rate and sell their billets in our state at cheaper rate', he further stated.

Iraki asserted that export incentive should be increased from present 3.5 per cent to 12 per cent to give the industry a boost as the export to countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka become as high as 50 per cent of the total production in the state at times, while the normal export figures were mere two to five per cent.

He further asserted that the Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX) future trading of steel or ingots should be stopped immediately to help the industry.

He revealed that the association has a meeting with CM Vijay Rupani, Dy CM Nitin Patel and Energy Minister Saurabh Patel around 10 days ago on the issues and they had assured about positive steps.

Meanwhile, the association representatives also took out a rally here and handed over keys of their units to Industry commissioner Rohit Sharma as a symbolic protest.