Sugal

London, Aug 21: Sugal&Damani, a privately-owned conglomerate with interests from stockbroking to jewellery shops in India, is in talks to bid for a 12-year-old Britain's National Lottery.

A spokeswoman for the National Lottery Commission (NLC) confirmed that Sugal&Damani had registered its intention to bid before the deadline of December 15.

The NLC has said that it hopes to have a small number of very high-quality bids and yesterday it welcomed Sugal's interest.

Sugal&Damani is the second serious challenge to Camelot for the new licence, which runs from 2009.

This year Tattersall's, an Australian lottery group, said it would bid for the licence.

The NLC's website says the Indian company, run by Sugalchand Jain, its chairman, has a 30-year experience of running lotteries in India, which qualifies it for the job.

Sugal&Damani also has expertise in computerised online lotteries, after rolling out 17,000 computer-based lottery terminals in Maharashtra, Punjab and West Bengal.

The company said: ''While we are one of the top players in every form of lottery played in the country, what sets us apart is our total control of technology elements in the computerised online field. We have complete in-house expertise and control on design, development, integration of software, hardware and networking, making us independent and flexible.'' Kamlesh Vijay, Chief Executive of Sugal's lottery bid, is reportedly working with British partners on its submission, and will visit Britain next month to agree details of those partnerships.

Local partners are expected to take on the key role of liaising with the government and retailers.

UNI