Reliance, Hindustan Petroleum among bidders for Bihar’s sick sugar mills
21 Dec 2007
Mumbai: Reliance Industries, the country's biggest private sector refiner and public sector oil major Hindustan Petroleum are among major companies that have bid for 15 sick sugar mills in Bihar that the state government is leasing out.
"Reliance Industries, Hindustan Petroleum, upper Ganges Sugar and Indian Glycol are some of the leading companies which have submitted their bids," Nitish Mishra, Bihar`s minister for sugarcane, said.
He said the compilation of bids is on and a final picture would emerge by next week.
The last day for submission of bids expired today and the shortlisting would be done on December 29, he said.
The oil companies' interest stems from the fact that the centre has made mandatory the blending of petrol with five per cent ethanol, a by-product of sugar.
Bihar had last month invited bids for leasing out 15 of its closed mills for a 60-year period.
Reliance Industries, United Spirits, Tata Chemicals and state-run Indian Oil Corp were among the 35 companies which evinced preliminary interest in taking over the sick mills.
About 82 applications were sold for leasing out sugar mills to private sector and some of the firms have bought as many as 15 `request for qualification` forms, which was priced at Rs 10,000 each, the minister said.
