Steel price increases by most major Indian producers are of great concern to the Indian forging industry. In spite of repeated appeals by Indian steel customers for domestic steel-pricing parity equivalent to international prices, the cost of steel has continued to climb. The surge in steel prices comes at a time when India’s forging industry showed signs of recovery. In early 2008, Indian forgers requested that India’s government invoke a regulation to check the runaway profiteering of steel mills. This request was denied as not in accordance with open-market economic policies.

Steel manufacturers claim the rise in the price of inputs and the need to be at par with international steel rates as the reasons for price increases, though the forging community claims the prices of steel raw-material inputs has declined. “This unfair step from the steel manufacturers has pushed us back to the wall again,” said Vidyashankar Krishnan, president of the Association of Indian Forging Industry (AIFI).