Jeera stock at NSEL's Unjha warehouse pledged to ICICI

Warehouses of jeera in Unjha, address of which has been put up on NSEL's product contract notes, were found to be locked

As the beleaguered National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) evaluates options to meet its obligations, one of its possible recourses is liquidating commodity stocks stacked in warehouses leased to the exchange.

A visit to two NSEL warehouses at Shivganga, on the Unjha-Unava highway, revealed the jeera (cumin seed) stock in these warehouses was already pledged to ICICI Bank. The designated jeera warehouses, the addresses of which had been put up on NSEL’s product contract notes, were found to be locked. A notice on the doors said, “This stock (is) pledged to ICICI Bank Ltd.” “ICICI Bank does not comment on client-specific exposure,” the bank said in an emailed reply.

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NSEL data showed as of July 26, its warehouses at Unjha had a stock of 1,722 tonnes of farm grade jeera. Sources said the exchange had stored 7,100 bags (each weighing 55 kg), totalling 394 tonnes, in these warehouses. Going by the current spot price of about Rs 13,500 a quintal, the jeera stored at the warehouses is worth about Rs 5.31 crore.

“Goods once pledged to a bank cannot be sold unless the borrower repays the bank. One doesn’t know at how many more NSEL warehouses the stocks have been pledged,” said a market source.