Control cement, steel prices immediately:builders urge govt.

Chennai, Jun 29 (UNI) Construction companies in the city under Builders Association of India (BAI) today urged the Tamil adu government and the Centre to take steps immediately to control the increasing prices of cement and steel.

Talking to newspersons here, association chairman A V Ramasamy said the cement price per bag has increased from Rs 165 to Rs 240 over a period of one year".

"The increase in cement price was without any increase in excise duty, limestone, salestax, railway freight or demand supply mismatch", he pointed out.

Apart from this, cement cannot be imported because the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has not relaxed cement from its list, he said adding "if we import cement, the price would be less than Rs 170 per bag".

On the steel price increase, he claimed that the steel prices too increased from Rs 26,000 to 33,000 over the period of six months.

"This is because major steel companies such as SAIL and Vaisak Steel Plant started selling steel through their distributors", he pointed out.

He said "all infrastructure and housing works are languishing for the cement and steel requirement as the construction activity de-accelerated to 10.7 per cent in 2006-2007 compared to 14.2 per cent in 2005-2006".

UNI