What is more important to note is that in the first quarter of the current year it has netted a surplus of Rs 2 crore. In the current year it is thus poised to close with a net profit of over Rs 8 crore.

The present happy situation has been achieved by following a multi-pronged strategy which includes the VRS and incentive scheme of profit-sharing with the employees. In fact, the profit sharing scheme has done wonders with the employees making additional incomes.

The VRS has enabled RSMDC, once a loss-making State undertaking, to get rid of over 800 of its employees and the present strength of the persons on its pay rolls has now been reduced to about 700. ``We arecomfortably placed now to make profits,'' says chairman and managing director KK Saxena.

Saxena, a senior IAS officer, said that the steps taken in the past had improved the bottomline of the corporation and the future looked bright. The corporation dealt in the mining of gypsum, limestone, rock phosphate, lignite etc. In fact, it is the first state body to mine and sell lignite in Rajasthan.

Lignite mining was considered very special but RSMDC had developed its own skills to do it at a less cost. The corporation had approached the government to give to it more lignite mines in Rajasthan so that it could be mined even for power generation purposes, said Saxena.

Limestone is sold to the steel manufacturing plants such as Tisco and SAIL. The quality of limestone found in Jaisalmer was superior compared to the imported one but due to the long distances the transportation cost was not economical, said Saxena. The Railways should give some relief in the transportation cost if the industry was tosurvive.

In the mining of gypsum RSMDC had a sort of monopoly status. From gypsum alone it had a sale proceeds of over Rs 70 crore in a year. The corporation had shown interest in taking over the gypsum mines in the Nagaur district which were hitherto in the control of ACC.

And in the rock phosphate mining there was no problem. The corporation continued to be in the mining of rock phosphate even tough RSMM was the main producer of the mineral at Jhamarkotra near Udaipur. The latter sold rock phosphate worth Rs 190 crore last year.