Nine bidders keen on Orissa spinning mills

The Orissa government's attempt to privatise two of its loss making spinning mills has received encouraging response with nine parties showing interest to take over the same.

Set up in early 70s, the two mills operating under Spinning Mill Federation of Orissa (Spinfed) are Oricospin located at Tora near Bargarh with 30,800 spindles and Calicospin located at Gobindapur near Dhenkanal with 25,088 spindles.

While the average production of Oricospin is estimated at 6,500 kilos per day, the capacity of the Calicospin is pegged at 5,000 kilos per day. The average count of yarns produced by both the mills, which mostly catered to the needs of cloth manufacturing units in West Bengal was 26.

However, Oricospin and Calicospin have shut down their operation since 1999 and 2002 respectively following mounting losses. Though the accumulated losses of Calicospin is yet to be updated, the accumulated losses of Oricospin is estimated at Rs 30 crore. Besides this the plant had a liability of about Rs 15 crore.

The Orissa government had invited expression of interest bids in September the last date for which was October 18. During this time to attract buyers for these assets, the public enterprise department of the state government had launched extensive marketing exercise which included road shows at Calcutta and Hyderabad.