Govt to waive off Rs 550cr loan soon: Madras Fertiliser

The fertiliser secretary has said that the ministry has prepared a revival plan for Madras Fertilisers.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Satish Chandra, CMD, Madras Fertilisers gave his perspective and expectations on the fertiliser secretary's revival proposal for the company. Below is a verbatim transcript. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: We spoke post the economic policy and today we have the fertiliser secretary say that we have prepared a revival proposal for Madras Fertilisers, what we could expect in terms of a monetary compensation for the government, how far is this and what is the quantum of your expectation? A: The revival proposal consists of two parts. Part one is financial restructuring and part two technical revamp. In the financial restructuring, there were many creditors for MFL, one was IDBI and they had given us loan earlier and we had one time settlement with them. We had paid the entire amount of Rs 58 crore to them. So there is no loan due to them. Second is on IFCI we have paid Rs 44 crore, and we have also paid Rs 4 crore to small lenders like LIC and Industrial Investment Bank of India (IIBI). The government of India has given us a principal amount of Rs 390 crore and on that interest is around Rs 160 crore. So that is totally Rs 550 crore. As the fertiliser secretary has already told me that we have sent a proposal for the waiver of this loan because once this loan is waived then our balance sheet will be clean and we start with clean balance sheet without any loan overdue. Q: What is the regulatory procedure, you possibly go through for the waiver of this loan of around Rs 550 crore and when could we possibly expect this event to happen? A: This will happen very shortly because we have prepared a note for Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) and BRPSE has advised us to seek the comments of other ministries. So we have sent a note to finance, agriculture and planning commission, once we get their comments. We will go to the BRPSE and after their approval, we need to go to CCEA, which altogether may take around 4-5 months. So we are hopeful of getting this. This is one proposal. In the meanwhile, the second for revamp and this rehabilitation of the old plant, we need around Rs 365 crore. Q: How are you going to fund this Rs 365 crore? A: The government is giving us a loan amount of Rs 365 crore. Already the implementation of the Rs 365 crore proposal has started from the year