NTC to revive two cotton mills

Ignoring the position of the West Bengal government favouring the setting up of greenfield textiles units in the state, the National Textile Corporation Limited (NTC) has instead opted for reviving the existing cotton mills through private participation.

Private sector investors would be selected for reviving the cotton mills, namely Sodepur Cotton Mill and Laxminarayan Cotton Mill at Rishra under NTC.

The selection would be finalised in the next one month, said Shankar Singh Vaghela, Union minister of textiles at a press conference in Kolkata on Tuesday. “However, the state government wanted to greenfield units instead of reviving the mills, but that would not be possible now,” the minister said.

Of the three bids received by the government for reviving the mills, none were from West Bengal. Sources said that two Maharashtra-based companies, namely, Eskay group and K S Group, had participated in the bidding process.

Deloitte & Touche Consulting had been appointed for reviving the two mills. Another mill, Arti Cotton Mill in Dasnagar, would be operational by October this year, with an installed capacity of 30,000 spindles and 8,000kg of yarn per day.

NTC has spent about Rs 65 crore on reviving it. NTC earmarked about Rs 530 crore for reviving 22-odd cotton mills in the country, with about Rs 350 crore being already spent by the government.

This fiscal, the government expected 20 per cent increase in export earning from textiles products, against $22 billion last fiscal.