The privatisation of Uttar Prdesh government-owned sugar mills is back on track. The state government on Tuesday decided to go ahead with the disinvestment process of the 11 sugar mills of the Uttar Pradesh State Sugar Corporation Ltd (UPSSCL) and has also chalked out a fresh time table for it.
Accordingly, the draft request for proposal (RFP) will be updated and a pre-bid meeting be held on April 30, followed by the issuance of the request for RFP on May 6. ?All the 10 shortlisted bidders will be required to submit bids by June 4,? said an official in the cane department told FE.
If plans go as per schedule, the government intends to complete disinvestment processes of mills before the next crushing season expected to start in October.
The Mayawati government has been aiming at privatising the entire UPSSCL shortly after assuming power in May, 2007. But with not many takers coming in to buy sick mills, it decided to first sell off the 11 operational sugar mills owned by UPSSCL. However, in the meantime, legal issues delayed the government?s plans, thereby forcing the government to run the mills on its own till now.
?But now that the Allahabad High Court has given its go-ahead on carrying out the process of selling the mills and the current cane crushing season has come to a positive end, the government is going to pick up the process from where it had left it almost a year back,? said the government official.
The 10 companies that had shown interest in buying the 11 operational mills, include Triveni Engineering, Indian Potash, Patel Engineering, Dwarikesh Sugar, Wave Industries, Lakshmipathy Balaji Sugar and Distilleries, DCM Shriram, PBS Food, Ticola Sugars and SBEC Bio Energy.
The 11 mills for which bids were received are Amroha, in JP Nagar, Bijnore, in Bijnore district, Bulandshahr, Chandpur, in Bijnor, Jarwal Road in Bahraich, Khadda, in Kushi Nagar, Mohiuddinpur in Meerut, Rohanakalan in Muzzafarnagar, Saharanpur, Sakhotitanda in Meerut and Siswabazar in Maharajganj.
Interestingly, apart from being in running condition, most of these mills have large land banks to add to their ?attractiveness?. A big draw for these mills is the vast cane area that comes along with it. In fact, the bidders had demanded that the government promise not to change the cane area for the next five years after the sale is through, so as to ensure that their supply of cane for running the mill, if they decide to buy it, would remain intact.