The Leader Universal Berhad-dominated board has, however, inducted the BIFR-appointed special director, Mr UP Singh, on the Incab board. Mr Singh was the only one to have gone over from India to attend the meet.

According to sources in the company, the Incab board's strength after the induction of Mr Singh stands at 13. While five directors represent Leader Universal, four others represent the Indian financial institutions (FIs), i.e. LIC, UTI, ICICI and GIC, and two others, Mr HK Khaitan and Mr US Bhartia, represent Mr PK Saraf. The newly inducted Mr Singh and the wholetime director, Mr P Ghosh, completes the count.

Sources said another board meet of the beleaguered Incab Industries would be called `within a month'. Sources also said that Leader Universal, which had until now sent only a copy of the resolutions adopted at its 603rd board meet in Penang on December 4, 2000, to the Board for Industrial & Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) without demanding any `specific action' against Mr Ghosh, would do so now.

The septuagenarian wholetime director has been acting contrary to Leader's interests in Incab and has allegedly switched allegiance in favour of Kolkata-based businessman SP Arya, who claims to have bought over Leader's stake in Incab entirely.

Mr Arya had recently told the Kolkata high court that he had paid Rs 42 crore to the Malaysia-based Leader group for its entire 51.16 per cent in Incab.

Power supply cut off Meanwhile, the situation at Incab's principal works here has turned grave as on February 1, Tata Steel disconnected the restricted power supply it had been making to the cable maker's township.Incab Industries has, of late, been not able to pay up the electricity bills of Tata Steel for lack of funds.

Faced with the prospect of total disruption of power supply from Tata Steel, the local Incab management, fearing a law & order problem ahead, had recently sent out SOS to the Jharkhand Governor, the state labour minister and the company's wholetime director for their urgent intervention.

The Incab senior general manager (personnel & administration), Mr AK Ghosh, had written to Jharkhand Governor Prabhat Kumar that 1,700 employees of the company's biggest works here, who had been going without salary for the past 10 months, were now facing, besides starvation, "the grim prospect of disruption of drinking water supply, when Tisco (Tata Steel) is understood to be disconnecting even the restricted power to the township where thousands of families live."

The senior general manager had requested the Governor to "advise Tisco to desist from such action as it will lead to total chaos and a law & order problem."

In a similar appeal, with copies to the local administration here, a seven-member local management team led by the senior general manager has drawn Mr Ghosh's urgent attention towards "non-availability of funds for procurement of diesel to operate our DG sets for maintaining drinking water supply system to the residential quarters."

"And therefore, the 1,700 employees (who are without salary for the past 10 months and are virtually starving) and their families are going to be without even drinking water most probably from next Monday, i,e February 4, 2001," the letter stated.

The local management had been keeping the wholetime director informed about the situation prevailing here and wrote, "but unfortunately, we have failed to have any positive response from your end."