The government wants to ban imports of waste from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Somalia, the home ministry official said.

"Other states in Africa and the Gulf littered with such garbage can be also put on the list," he added.

The comments came as police announced 219 artillery shells had been found overnight in New Delhi's commercial-cum-residential district of Najafgarh.

"The shells, at least five of them live, were found abandoned in Najafgarh on Monday," a police spokesman said, as authorities found rockets and shells from scrap imported from Cameroon in the central Indian city of Raipur.

"Nine live rockets and 63 empty shell casings of various sizes and capacities were recovered from imported scrap," Raipur police chief Rajeev Mathur said.

Police also siezed 60 shells Monday from the western Indian city of Anjar as projectiles, some of World War II vintage, kept popping up in several more Indian cities and towns.

"In one incident a mentally-deranged person was found carrying five spent shells in a bag," the Indian Express newspaper said.

More than 1,000 pieces of war junk have surfaced in nationwide sweeps since September 27 when 10 workers died in a private foundry after Iranian-made shells blew up during handling in New Delhi's bustling industrial suburb of Sahibabad.

The growing stockpile of unwanted weaponry, including surface-to-air missiles, tank-busters, shells, landmines, mortar bombs, machineguns and even tank turrets, has prompted the army to look for safer zones to detonate the confiscated explosives.

According to the Central Board of Excise and Customs, at least 2.2 million tonnes of scrap is likely to be imported during the current fiscal year ending March 31 by private factories, which extract metal for use by India's booming construction sector.

Customs officials say it is impossible to rummage through some 1,000 cargo containers that arrive daily at New Delhi's Tughlaqabad warehousing complex after landing at various ports in the country.

The Indian government alarmed by the lethal recoveries has sought the help of forensic experts at major import locations to hunt for explosives and radioactive material, a government statement said.

"Since customs officials have neither (the) expertise nor proper equipment ... the finance ministry feels that only compacted and schredded scrap should be allowed," the statement said.

Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee tried to play down the fears saying he "did not see any security threat from the presence of the explosives".

However he asked metal scrap importers to be more vigilant, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

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