EIL employees oppose selloff move

The employees' contention is that eight of the 12 parties in the fray for management control of the engineering consultancy firm are financial institutions.

"What kind of strategic sale is the government planning? Even Haldiram's can take over EIL if it meets the networth criterion laid out by the government," an employee argued.

The third round of due diligence of EIL commenced on Tuesday for the interested parties to scrutinise the updated accounts of the company before submitting their financial bid. The second round of due diligence was concluded in January this year.

The employees said EIL had been involved in preparing sketches for the Indian Space Research Organisation and for defence purposes. While clearing the transaction documents of EIL, the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment had decided that the sensitive sketches with the company would be returned to its clients before the strategic sale.

Officers said Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and EIL were the only two Indian companies that were permitted to do lumpsum turnkey projects "" projects where consultants are responsible from conceptualising to commissioning the work "" worth more than Rs 300 crore.

The total business for such projects in India is Rs 5,000 crore annually.

An employee concurred that if L&T was to take over EIL, then it would have a monopoly in the lumpsum turnkey projects consulting business and recoup its cost of acquiring EIL within a year.

Employees said the ONGC-BHEL combine, the only public sector entity in the fray for EIL, had assured them of an aggressive bid for EIL.

They said that senior officials in ONGC did not want EIL to lose its public sector character.

EILOA and EILEA have the allegiance of 2,750 employees of the company. That leaves only 65 seniormost officers out of the group that has taken it upon itself to oppose the disinvestment of the company.