The Indian Chemical Council (ICC) has requested the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC) to take up concerns of the Indian chemical industry regarding a new non injurious price (NIP) law to ensure a fair playing field for the domestic manufacturers.

According to the ICC, the new NIP law, recently introduced by the government, is not in the larger interest of industrialisation in the county and would significantly undermine the country\'s ability to prevent injurious dumping. It is based on presumptions and assumptions. It is contrary to the fundamental obligation of the government to protect its industry against unfair practice of dumping resorted by foreign producers.

\"The NIP law will significantly reduce the quantum of anti-dumping duties that can be imposed by the government under the relevant statute, and would ignore the actual extent of injury suffered by the domestic industry,\" the ICC said in a letter to the DCPC.

\"The new law provides that the designated authority shall ignore actual consumption of raw materials and utilities and instead consider input consumption at their lowest level over the past four years. The application of the law thus ignores the fact that the raw materials and utilities consumption are directly dependent on i) product mix of the product concerned, ii) purity of the raw materials, and iii) operating parameters.

\"The new law provides that the designated authority shall consider certain expenses at highest achieved production over the past four years,\" it said.

\"At the moment, the functioning of the anti-dumping authority is seriously impeded by these issues and only serves to protect international exporters and their local agents as they dump more and more into India through wide open doors.

\"We therefore request the government to urgently look into these concerns of the Indian industry and consider the need for a further amendment and clarification to the law and ensure a fair playing field for the domestic manufacturers,\" the ICC said.