The Hindu Business Line : Trayons revival still in limbo

Kochi, July 6 Even as the lay-off of the sick Travancore Rayons Ltd (TRL) is to enter the seventh year on July 17, so far nothing as announced earlier has emanated from the Government about signing of an agreement with the promoters despite the Chief Minister setting May 1 as the deadline for it.

Official sources told Business Line that some issues that required Cabinet approval have to be sorted out by some of the departments and they would be cleared soon. However, they declined to spell out those issues.

‘It’s in Govt hand’

Meanwhile, the promoters, Kochi-based Elenjical Group of Industries, has said the reopening of the unit “now rests on the Government’s decision to sign an agreement”.

Mr Joseph Varughese, Managing Director of the Group, said: “We have already arrived at an agreement with the banks and financial institutions to settle all the outstanding dues by paying Rs 5 crore apart from reaching an agreement with the trade unions. Thus, we have done everything that we are required to do”.

The promoters are ready to go ahead with the revival of the company as per the earlier agreement that the Government had entered into with Coimbatore-based group minus the demand for sales tax concessions and the allotment of 300 acres of forestland. These two clauses could be deleted from the agreement, “as we don’t need them”, he said. If the agreement is signed today “we will start work to revive the company from tomorrow”, he said.

The promoters had already paid Rs 50 lakh to the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) as a token money to show the promoter’s commitment to reopen the company, Mr Joseph said.

The present promoter would invest Rs 250 crore in three years. They would initially start operations of the plants manufacturing cellophane and pulp. Manufacturing of rayons would be taken up in the second stage, he said. Besides, a cluster of units would come up in the compound to be set up by interested parties. Applications have been received from 50 interested parties and the units would be in food processing, biotechnology and research in biosciences, he said.

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