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KOCHI, Sept. 30

FERTILIZERS and Chemicals Travancore Ltd (FACT) has an action plan for disinvestment.

According to Mr P.R. Balasubramanium, CMD, the Ministry of Disinvestment has already appointed a legal advisor who is preparing a Preliminary Information Memorandum (PIM).

``At this stage, an infusion of private funds would help. Once the memorandum is put up for expression of interest, it will only be a matter of time,'' he added.

FACT has registered a net profit of Rs 63 lakh for the current fiscal. The company, which had been in the red for the past two years, has no accumulated losses for the current period.

Speaking to newspersons, Mr Balasubramanium said that this was largely due to financial assistance from the Central Government to the tune of Rs 226.87 crore.

The financial aid was by way of waiving the outstanding interest for the period from 1998-99 to 2001-2002.

"We have no accumulated losses as of March 31, 2002. In fact, we have reserves to the tune of Rs 60 crore.''

The overall performance of the company was not encouraging during 2001-2002.

Cumulative production of total nutrients during the year at 14,629 million tones recorded a marginal decline of 0.3 per cent compared to the previous year.

The company ended the year with a total sales turnover of Rs 1,294 crore.

The production of ammonium sulphate at 2,20,945 tonnes, Factamfos at 8,26,119 tonnes, urea at 22,260 tonnes and Caprolactum at 48,865 tonnes could not fully match the production performance of the previous year.

During the April-August period this year, the company has suffered a loss of Rs 109.16 crore as against Rs 106.68 crore during the corresponding period last year.

According to Mr Balasubramanium, the negative impact of high raw material costs, unremunerative realisation of end products, shutdown of Cochin Division Urea Plant, under-utilisation of captive phosphoric acid capacity besides the capital-related costs of 900 TPD ammonia plant led to the company's performance having slipped to the negative side.

Production of Factamfos at the Udyogamandal and Cochin Divisions was 89 per cent and 96 per cent respectively, as production had to be curtailed due to high stock of products consequent of poor offtake of fertilisers following heavy drought.

The production of Caprolactum and ammonium sulphate has also lagged behind.

With no improvement in the situation, the sale of Caprolactum up to August was 106 per cent of the target at 25,525 tonnes.

Outlining the growth plan of FACT, Mr Balasubramanium said that the Government has already made a provision of Rs 400 crore against projects for consideration during the 10th Plan period.

Apart from ongoing schemes for consolidation and optimisation of current operations, the company is looking at setting up of an additional sulphuric plant at Kochi Division, performance improvement scheme for Cochin Division Phase I, switching over from LNG to naptha, improvement of sulphuric acid plant in Udyogamandal and the Anone plant at the Petrochemical Division.

In a bid to reduce its interest burden, the company has initiated an exercise to identify NPAs and their disposal and leasing.It is also in the process of rationalisation of manpower and optimum utilisation of human resources.

``We had approached the Tariff Commission seeking to be treated separately, i.e, for unit-wise pricing scheme. If this comes through, it would improve profitability of our phosphatic operations at least for the next couple of years,'' Mr Balasubramanium said.

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