Corporate giants look for Bihars closed sugar mills

Patna, Dec 3 (UNI) Many big industrial houses have shown keen interest to take over the closed sugar mills in Bihar, state Sugar Minister Nitish Mishra said today.

The corporate giants like Reliance, Tata, Bharti Mittal group, Hindustan Petroleum, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum and others have already sent their proposal showing interest for the closed sugar mills in the state, Mr Mishra said.

He said the government has so far received requests for qualification forms priced at Rs 10,000 each from these houses.

The government has planned to lease out the closed sugar mills on "zero liability" basis.

The minister admitted that in absence of updated machineries and high production cost, at least fifteen sugar mills had been virtually closed for over a decade. He, however, claimed these mills have huge land and other important infrastructure which were essential for any investor to convert the mill into profit making one.

Mr Mishra said seven sugar mills have been selected for investment in non-sugar based industries and through their bidding the government was expecting to earn about Rs 220 crore.

On the other hand, the government has received several proposals for setting up of new sugar mills and sugar parks in the state.

However, the land acquisition was coming in the way, another source said today.

UNI