Indian Foundry Association (IFA) organized a press conference in the august presence of Dinesh Kumar Seksaria, Chairman of IFA and Managing Director, Govind Steel Co Ltd, Akash Madhogaria, Vice Chairman of IFA and Managing Director, Vikas Castings, Ajoy Kumar Madhogaria, Vice Chairman of IFA and Managing Director, NSI (India) Ltd and Abhijit Chatterjee, Secretary, IFA.

The Foundry industry one of the key components of metal castings to the majority of the engineering sectors is facing a crisis and is on the verge of collapsing.

The authorities demanded that:

• Reduction of import duty on pig iron, met coke, metal scrap, and chemicals.
• Temporary suspension on exporting of iron ore and pig iron. Unless export duty for both the items is raised high, the Foundry Industry and the government are also losing earnings.

To facilitate modernization and expansion of the Foundry Industry, the Association has created a Special Purpose Vehicle named Foundry Cluster Development Association for implementing the Foundry Park project. The association also felt that the state Government must provide Special Status to the project and provide electricity at the same rate as DVC is providing to the Asansol Industrial area.

Priyanka Dutta