Balrampur
Chini goes whole hog on governance
Balrampur
Chini Mills Ltd (BCML), in order to improve corporate governance of
the company, has inducted in its board, Mr Naresh Chandra, chairman
of the committee on corporate governance which was set up by union ministry
of finance.
The
company has appointed Mr Chandra as an independent non-executive director
on its board, after seeking approval from its shareholders at its 28th
AGM held here last week.
Talking
to reporters here after the AGM, Vivek Saraogi, managing director of
BCML, said the industry should now strive to export raw sugar, instead
of trying hard to raise exports of white plantation sugar alone, which
has limited scope in international markets. Though there is no quota
restriction on export of raw sugar, Indian sugar industry has so far
stayed away from exporting the commodity for being uncompetitive against
raw sugar originated from Brazil and EU countries, which offer huge
subsidy on its exports.
According
to Mr Saraogi, the country is now slogging with an exportable surplus
of 4-4.5 million tonnes of sugar. The surplus can be liquidated if industry
gears itself up to export two million tonnes of raw sugar and the remaining
as white plantation sugar. To achieve this, the industry needs more
cash assistance from Centre and state governments as well.
For
instance, he suggested, subsidy on ocean freight can be raised by Centre
to $20 per tonne from the existing level of $7 per tonne. This apart,
emulating example of Maharashtra, other sugar producing states should
start providing cash assistance at a flat rate of Rs 1,000 per tonne
on sugar exports, he added.
Disclosing
the company’s performance in the first quarter of 2003-04 at the AGM,
Mr Saraogi said even after facing tremendous pressure on its topline,
the company has earned a net profit of Rs 8.45 crore.
in
the quarter, which is up by 2% over Rs 8.29 crore in the corresponding
quarter last year. Due to lower price realisation on sugar, its turnover
in Q1 this year dropped nearly 7% to Rs 176.40 crore from Rs 189.11
crore in the same period last year. Even then, the company improved
its bottomline in the period, albeit marginally, after cutting down
its expenditure by about 12%, he said.
TIMES
NEWS NETWORK
[ MONDAY, AUGUST
04, 2003 05:49:47 AM ]
