MUMBAI: The 4.9 acre Kohinoor Mill No. 3 was on Thursday auctioned at Rs. 421 crores to a joint venture floated by the son of former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, Unmesh, and other Shiv Sena leaders.

The tenders for the mill were opened in the afternoon, according to National Textile Corporation (NTC) sources. Mr. Joshi's Kohinoor Projects Company along with Matoshree Realtors Private Limited, of which Sena leader Raj Thackeray is a director, bid for the Mill land financed by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), according to Rajan Shirodkar of Matoshree Realtors. Their venture, Kohinoor Consolidated Transport Network (CTN) Limited, with a bid of Rs. 421 crores, was the highest bidder.

The other two in the running were Varun Industries, which bid Rs. 411 crores, and Akruti Nirman Private Limited with a bid of Rs. 355 crores. Kohinoor Mill

No. 3 is located across the road from the Shiv Sena's party headquarters, Sena Bhavan in its stronghold of Dadar.

40 bids, says NCP

Meanwhile, the Nationalist Congress Party MP from Mumbai Central, Sachin Ahir, who also heads the Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh, has objected to the sale of the Kohinoor Mill land, saying that there were 40 bids but only three were short-listed. He demanded a re-bid as there was a lack of transparency. He also claims that over a thousand workers were not paid dues.

Kohinoor Mill No. 3 is part of a huge mill complex in central Mumbai. But NTC sources said the other two mills, Kohinoor Mill No. 1 and No. 2, would not be sold as the NTC had surplus land in those mills. Kohinoor Mill and Elphinstone Mill are the last two of the five NTC mills that have been cleared for open sale.

Tenders were also opened for Elphinstone Mills in Parel on Thursday. But NTC sources said the name of the highest bidder could not be declared as the court case pending regarding the mill will come up for hearing next Monday. A case was filed by the mill owner, Elphinstone Spinning and Weaving Mill Company, in the Bombay High Court challenging the acquisition of the sick mill by NTC in 1983. This mill was one of the 13 taken over by NTC.

The sources confirmed that India Bulls Real Estate private limited was the highest bidder for the nine-acre mill with a bid of Rs. 441.75 crores. But the matter cannot be pursued till the final order of the court. The tenders were opened as NTC said that the court did not object to this. NTC officials had already told the bidders that the transaction process would not be completed till the case was decided. Five parties had bid for Elphinstone Mills. A month ago, another NTC mill, Mumbai Textile Mill fetched a record Rs. 702 crores.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mafatlal Munoth, Chairman, Kalpataru Group, a leading real estate development company, said, "All these mill lands are unique pieces of real estate. It is all a perception and one cannot really say whether or not the price is too high.''

"A gamble"

Mr. Munoth said that anyway any developer who was willing to pay such a high price was taking a `gamble.' "At the price paid for the property, it works out to effectively Rs. 17,000 per square foot. At the very least, development costs and interest costs would amount to Rs 3,000 per square foot each. Effectively, he would have to price the property between Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 27,000 per square foot with the ground floor of the property commanding up to even a 20 per cent premium.''

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