Prabhat Khabar sale put on hold

After months of speculation on the highest bidder, the Rs 3,000 crore Usha Martin group of Kolkata has put on hold the sale of its Jharkhand-based Hindi newspaper Prabhat Khabar.

"This has been done keeping in mind the sentiments of our newspaper employees," said Rajeev Jhawar, joint managing director of Usha Martin. The employees of the Jharkhand-based Hindi daily were agitating over the newspaper's proposed sale to Jagran Prakshan Limited, even as the Prabhat Khabar management maintained that no deal had been sealed with any of the bidders.

The newspaper's employees, however, insist they were informally told that Dainik Jagran was the front-runner in the race for taking over Prabhat Khabar.

An employees' delegation met the Usha Martin management in Ranchi yesterday and denounced the proposed sale of the paper to Dainik Jagran.

They said that the daily should not be sold to any publisher which has its own newspaper brand in the Jharkhand market as it may lead to massive job cuts at Prabhat Khabar.