MRAI urges government to remove basic customs duty on import of aluminium scrap

Material Recycling Association of India (MRAI), a secondary aluminium industry body, has urged the government to remove the basic customs duty on import of aluminium scrap from the present level of 2.5%. MRAI said the move by primary aluminium association, Aluminium Association of India (AAI) which wants the duty to be raised to 10 %, is likely to lead to loss of thousands of jobs in the downstream and ancillary industries.

“We are surprised to see that even after knowing this, a delegation of the(Aluminium) association met Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Ramesh Abhishek recently with a request to increase the duty to 10%,” MRAI President Sanjay Mehta said in a statement.

Such protective measures would restrict the availability of recycled aluminium for more than 5,000 units in the country, which needs to be encouraged for leveraging consumption opportunities of aluminium, he pointed out.


AAI does not represent all stake holders of the aluminium industry in the country, he said, adding that it only represents the primary producers of the sector and “more than 50% of stake holders are in the secondary aluminium recycling sectors and are closely associated with MRAI.”

An increase in duty will have an adverse impact on the small and medium players of the sector who make products such as alloys by recycling as it will raise their input cost, Kishore Rajpurohit, Executive Committee Member, MRAI, said. “We request the government that instead of raising the duty it should abolish it and bring it down to zero,” he said. The association further said that primary aluminium is used in electrical, foils, powder, extrusions etc., whereas aluminium scrap is mainly used in alloy ingots, castings for the auto industry and in steel plants for deoxidation.