Key steel producers like the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (Tisco) Essar Steel and Ispat Industries are expected to attend the first meeting of the committee in the capital on November 6. The steel companies are likely to press for their long-standing demand for an upward revision of the basic customs duty on hot rolled coils and cold rolled coils.

In the last Budget the Centre had partly acquiesced to the industry demand, by re-introducing a disparity in the importy duties on cold rolled coils and its basic raw material, hot rolled coils. The industry demand for a tariff barrier comes in the wake of a drastic fall in the international price of hot rolled coils to roughly $ 175 a tonne (cost in freight) last month from $ 335 a tonnein 1995-96. The steel industry has also been pressing for a trigger price mechanism, that will automatically impose a tariff barrier on products entering the country below a reference price. The system has been introduced in Mexico and is intended to be a check against dumping from overseas.