He explained that he had three rounds of meetings to facilitate sale of NTCequity. In this regard, Indo Rama and Indian Petrochmical Corporation (ICPL)had evinced keen interest but their offers could not be accepted, he said.The minister also revealed that he had rejected a demand of the Swarup Groupwho had a share of 23.66 per cent in SPL for closing down SPL.

NTC acquired the stake in 1988 when the mill then known as Swadeshi PolytexLtd, was nationalised by the Government after a Supreme Court order. Withsuch a large shareholding, SPL is virtually under NTC's management.

The financial institutions have a 16 per cent holding in SPL and the public27.22 per cent in the company.

The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) was engaged by NTC toscrutinise the bids and strike deals in consultation with the textilesministry. Initially, the date for receiving bids was fixed as July 31, 1999,which was later extended to August 31, 1999.

The deadline expired, but none of the bidders qualified for acquiring thestake, since their price quotations were found to be far below the benchmarkset by IDBI.

It was however felt that the government would lower the price for sale ofits stake in SPL or invite fresh bids.

NTC is a sick company as eight out of its nine subsidiares have already beenreferred to the Board for Financial and Industrial Reconstruction (BIFR). Ithas so far accumulated loss of about Rs. 7000 crore and, on top, about Rs.500 crore is being paid as idle wages to workers.

The textiles ministry has already agreed to grant interim relief to theclerical and sub-staff of the NTC mills, bringing their scales at par withthose at NTC's corporate offices of its subsidiaries.

These employees had been pressing the Government for parity of pay scalesand allowances with that of the corporate offices of the subsidiarycorporations of NTC.

Textile policy may get Cabinet nod next week
The new textile policy is expected to get the Cabinet's nod at its meetingnext week, textiles minister Kashiram Rana said.

Rana said that the policy based on the SR Satyam committee recommendationswas placed before the the Cabinet for a decision at its meeting on Tuesdaybut the meeting was put off due to developments in Sri Lanka.

The minister indicated that the ministry was not in favour of accepting thepanel's recommendation for scrapping the Handloom Reservation Order and forreviewing the hank yarn obligation on grounds that they would affect theweavers.

He said the policy was primarily intended to bring about stabililty of yarnprices to enable the industry to cut costs and face competition in the wakeof abolition of the quota regime by December 31, 2004 under the multi-fibrearrangement (MFA).