The Hindu : Business : Call for ban on import of used tyres

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 14, 2005

Business

Business

Call for ban on import of used tyres

Staff Correspondent

Risk to safety on improved highways and environmental hazard cited by Singhania

MYSORE: J. K. Industries on Wednesday rolled out the one-millionth truck radial tyre from its Mysore plant, marking a milestone for the company.

The one-millionth tyre was rolled out at a function at the Truck Radial Tyre Plant of the erstwhile Vikrant Tyres that was acquired by J. K. Industries in 1996. Speaking on the occasion, Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the Government's decision to divest its stake in Vikrant Tyres had been vindicated. He said the capacity of the plant had increased from 100 tonnes in 1996 to 213 tonnes a day at present.

Expansion scheme

Mr. Siddaramaiah said the State Government had the commitment for market driven, knowledge based, competitive industrial sector in Karnataka, and that the government was working towards providing a conducive industrial atmosphere. The State Industrial Policy 2001-06 envisaged an annual economic growth rate of 8-9 per cent for the next decade, he added.

The Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of J. K. Industries, Raghupati Singhania, said the turnover of Vikrant Tyres had grown from Rs. 350 crore in 1996 to Rs. 900 crore in 2005 and the company had been contributing nearly Rs. 200 crore to the Exchequer.

Further, Rs. 60 crore had been invested for capacity expansion, which would be completed by September. This was part of the Rs. 160-crore expansion plan announced for all J.K. Industries' tyre plants, he added.

On the performance of J. K. Tyres, Mr. Singhania said the company had grown from Rs. 33 crore in 1976 to Rs. 2,300 crore in 2005 with the tyres being exported to 60 countries. Today, he said the challenges of achieving radialisation of trucks were confronting the tyre industry. While passenger car segment had achieved radialisation of 90 per cent, the light commercial vehicle segment and heavy vehicle segment had achieved radialisation of 20 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively.

Later, speaking to presspersons, Mr. Singhania said procedures had to be put in place to prevent import of used tyres along with a correction of the inverted duty structure to prevent dumping of tyres.

Mr. Singhania said the import of second hand tyres should be banned as it posed not only risks to safety but also an environmental hazard. Thirty-six countries had banned the import of used tyres and the Central Government must also do the same since the infrastructure improvement had resulted in an increase in the speed of vehicles.

Duty structure

Regarding the duty structure, he said the import duty on tyres from China and SAFTA countries was lower than that on the raw materials of domestic tyre manufacturers like natural rubber and nylon chord.

Further, Mr. Singhania alleged that the Chinese manufacturers were dumping tyres in India by under invoicing.

Regarding the J.K. Tyres' move to acquire Falcon Tyres, he said it was too early to comment on the issue.

Mr. Singhania said the company was looking at outsourcing as an option and it included procurement of quality products to be sold under the JK brand.

While the company was already outsourcing tyres from China, he said, it was looking at outsourcing from Southeast Asia, South America and Central Asia also.

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