2 mills to turn power plants

The Cabinet Committee on Economics Affairs has backed out of an early decision to privatise two state-owned textile mills and has given permission to hand them over to the Ministry of Power to set up power plants there.

The committee made the decision at a meeting held at the Secretariat on Monday, Additional Secretary to the Cabinet Division Nurul Karim told reporters.

“The Committee in its meeting on Mar 13 had decided to hand over Magura Textile Mills Ltd and Rangamati Textile Mills Ltd to the Ministry of Textiles and Jute by withdrawing them from the Privatisation Commission’s sell-out lists. The decision has been approved today (Monday).”

“The Committee has also decided to put the two mills under the Power Division,” he added.

Earlier, the Privatisation Commission on May 22 last year approved sale of the mills, established by Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation, to the private entrepreneurs.

The bidders proposed Tk 600 million as the price of the mills and their lands, though the Committee estimated the price of their tangible assets to be about Tk 1.14 billion.
If the mills were sold out, the government would have paid total liabilities of Tk 1.74 billion.

After the Privatisation Commission forwarded the bidding proposals to the Cabinet Committee for its approval, the Committee rejected it.

Source: Bd news24