The cabinet committee on disinvestment of the Orissa government is meeting here tomorrow to decide on sale of Badamba Cooprative sugar mill and ferrochrome plant of the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (Idcol).
The Chennai based Shakti Sugar, which is currently running the Badamaba sugar mill on a lease arrangement with the state government, is the sole party to have put a proposal for outright purchase of the mill.
Orissa had put two cooperative sugar mills located at Nayagarh and Badamba on the block for sale in October, 2002. But there was no bidder for Nayagarh sugar mill.
The government, meanwhile, has decided to restructure the disinvestment of Nayagarh sugar mill into long term lease proposal and hand over its management to a private party.
The CCD is also expected to take a decision on whether to sell the 18,000 tonnes per annum Idcol ferrochrome plant located at Jajpur with or without captive mines.
The government had asked IDBI, the consultants to the disinvestment process, to give a final report on the modality of sale of the unit.
Sources said, though IDBI, in its report, has suggested sale of the unit with the mines to get better value for the property, the opinion in the cabinet is in favour of sale of the unit without mines.
In the backdrop of these opposing views of consultants and the cabinet, the CCD is like to take a decisive stand on the issue in tomorrow's meeting.
Of the11 firms who had bid for the ferrochrome plant, eight are reported to have expressed views that they may not be interested in the deal if the unit is sold without the captive mines. The three other bidders, who are willing to take up the unit even without captive mines included Visa International and Tata Steel.
The prominent among those who are against de-linking the captive mines from the sale process included Jindal Strips and Jindal Power and Steel.
The Orissa government, in its first phase of disinvestment, proposes to pull out of management of five state sector undertakings by October, 2003. The units are Nayagarh and Badamba cooperative sugar mills and three units of Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) - Hira Industrial Works (HIW), IDC Re-rolling Mill (IRM) and IDC Cement.
According to state PE secretary, JK Mohapatra, though the disinvestment of the proposed five units will not yield much in monetary terms, the government will get rid of Rs 500 crore liabilities through the process.
The PE department had identified 29 PSUs for disinvestment. However, the schedule of completing the process in the first phase for five units has been delayed by a couple of months.
Explaining the delay Mohapatra said, this is due to general slackness in the pace of disinvestment at the national level. "The national scenario has a cascading effect on the state", he added.
