Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Thursday launched the e-auction plan of state-owned National Textiles Corporation to raise Rs.5,000 crore in the current year through the sale of its surplus land in Mumbai and other cities.
In a first of its kind, the corporation's surplus land is being sold through the process of e-auction in a move to make the entire exercise transparent.
The block of land that came under the hammer on Thursday was a property measuring 2.39 acres of Podar Mills in Mumbai. A reserve price of Rs.250 crore has been fixed for the land. A total of eight bidders are participating in the auction, which will go on for the next three days. The next auction would be held between August 4 and 6 for a piece of land of Bharat Textile Mills, again located in Mumbai. The reserve price for the property, measuring 8.37 acre, has been fixed at Rs.750 crore. Seven bidders would participate in that auction.
NTC has a total of 1,300 acres of surplus land in various parts of the country. A senior Ministry official said NTC expected to raise Rs.2,000 crore from the first two auctions for the 11 acres belonging to Poddar Mills and Bharat Textiles Mills alone and over Rs.3,000 crore from the sale of surplus land belonging to six other mills in Mumbai during the remaining part of the current financial year. The funds raised would be utilised for NTC's plans, which include transforming into an integrated textile company, consisting of ginning, spinning, weaving, processing and garmenting by the end of the current fiscal.
