Chunk of NTC land sale by June

NDTV PROFIT EXCLUSIVE

In a few weeks, when NTC floats a tender to sell its mill lands, the rundown look of certain Mumbai areas will make way for new high-rises, malls, apartment and office complexes. A large chunk of NTC's mill land will be sold by June.

"Jamm mills, Sitaram mill, Bharat mills, these are the unviable mills which are closed. We have settled the VRS here and once we get permission from the state government, we will sell them," O P Agrawal, MD, NTC, North and South Maharashtra, told NDTV Profit.

NTC had a total of 255 crore acres of mill land, of which about 48 acres have already been sold to commercial developers. NTC is legally allowed to sell another 90 acres for commercial development.

The 48 acres that NTC has already sold, fetched more than Rs 2,000 crore. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that it could make double that amount from selling 90 acres.

These funds will be used for the repayement of bonds and settlement of VRS dues says NTC. NTC needed to raise nearly Rs 1,250 crore under a 2002 BIFR package.

Opponents of the land sales say that it has raised much more and has funds now to try and revive some sick mills without selling any more land.

However, NTC argues that it had borrowed Rs 2,028 crore to settle VRS claims and other dues, and now needs more money to revive 8 mills.

"We have repaid loans to financial institutions by issuing bonds. We need more money to repay interest on bonds and there are liabilities yet to be paid," said Agrawal.