The Hindu Business Line : MRTPC pulls up Thermax

In a surprise move, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) has pulled up Thermax Ltd for supplying a defective water treatment plant to Winsome Breweries Ltd.

Winsome Breweries, which manufactures beers such as Henninger, German Thunder, Winsberg Torando and Limo, had placed an order with a franchisee and agent of Thermax for a water treatment plant with specific dimensions and a flow rate of 40 cubic metre per hour.

While the MRTPC basically deals with unfair trade practices, Winsome Breweries filed a complaint with the commission about inferior product delivery, saying that the water treatment plant had "several discrepancies in what was ordered and what was supplied" including size of the dual median filter, size of the activated carbon filters and the size of the degassed water tank itself. It stated that the quality of water was dependent on the size of the filter vessels or the tank.

Winsome further stressed that these discrepancies had led to reduction in storage volume thereby resulting in plant capacity reduction and the quality of water not being up to the mark.

Thermax response

In reply to the accusations made, Thermax said: "If it (Winsome) was very particular about the dimensions, it ought to have rejected the material and stopped the payments." Instead, Winsome went ahead with the commissioning of the plant and conducted performance trial without any protest, it said to the Commission.

The analysis of the evidence produced by both the parties showed that, though there were defaults in the specifications of the equipments supplied as compared withto the purchase order, this did not affect the performance of the plant.

Rs 80,000 fine

The Commission on its part has stated that the plant supplied to Winsome did not conform to the dimensions specified in the purchase order and "to that extent only the respondent (Thermax) can be found fault with".

The loss on this account to Winsome has been accepted to be Rs 80,000.

Accordingly, the MRTPC has ordered Thermax to pay a sum of Rs 80,000 with a simple interest at 9 per cent to Winsome Breweries from the date of deposit to the date of payment within six weeks.

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