With the 1998-99 budget to be presented by early June, the Metal Container Manufacturers' Association of India wants the customs duty on the raw material of the industry-tinplate prime, waste/waste, black plate, tin free steel-to be reduced from 35 per cent to 20 per cent.

It also wants excise duty on metal containers to be reduced from 15 per cent to 8 per cent and if packed product is exempted from excise duty, then the tin plate in which it is packaged should also be exempted from duty.

The association states that out of a total requirement of about 350,000 tonnes of tin plate per annum the domestic industry produces around 70,000 tonnes and the balance 280,000 tonne has to be imported.

The sharpdepreciation of the rupee is rendering imports costly and the per capita consumption of tin plate in India was only 0.25 kg, against 9.70 kg in the U.S 2.70 kg in Brazil, 7.30 kg in Japan and 0.80 kg in Indonesia.About Rs 15 billion worth of cans are produced in India out of which 80 per cent is accounted for by the small scale units. There are over 1000 units spread over the country and only a few are medium scale industrial units.According to the association, there is need for restricting import of tinplate waste/waste since it eats into the market for prime tinplate. However, pesticides, paints, lubricants and talcum powder do not need tinplate prime.

The facts presented by tinplate producers on the other hand are not very flattering to the tin container and food packaging industry. There are only two tinplate producers in india namely Sail and Tisco and the production capacity is 240,000 tonnes enough to satisfy the local demand.

The current tinplate industry in India comprises of just two companies:Sail's Rourkela steel plant with 150,000 MT per annum installed capacity; The Tinplate Co of India (90,000 MT) with the total being 240,000 MT As against the above, the consumption of tinplate in India is well within the capacity needs of the domestic industry to meet which is evident if we examine the consumption figures during the last few years.

Despite large domestic capacity, imports are on the rise and production is falling. It is alleged that misprint tinplate, which have printed matter inside, is imported and used in packing oil, which may have untold health hazards. There is a breakdown of regulatory norms in the use of tinplate assert the tinplate producers.

As against 100,000 tonnes of prime tinplate needed to pack edible oil and vanaspati per annum in 15 kg tin containers the industry actually consumes 32,000 tonnes of prime tinplate and the remaining being secondaries or non prime tinplate which have defects. These seconds tinplates are banned in the food industry all over the world but 80per cent of tinokate imports into India is non prime grade as is evident from the following.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to ban the import of secondaries or raise the duty on it steeply as it is imported often at the price of scrap. Tinplate Company of Tatas has invested around Rs 300 crore in a state of the art cold rolling mill to control both product quality and regular availability but it is languishing for want of orders.

Since the demand for tinplate is likely to go up steeply the industry needs proper implementation of the regulations as also ban on imports of seconds.