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SIV Industries in trouble again

L.N. Revathy

COIMBATORE, July 30

THE ailing SIV Industries at Sirumugai near Mettupalayam is in trouble again. After the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, it is now the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board that has put the company on notice for non-payment of dues amounting to Rs 2.8 crore.

The TNEB has notified the SIV Industries that power connection to the unit would be snapped in the event of the unit failing to clear its dues by July 31.

(HT consumers remit their dues by the 15th of every month. The respective circle SEs are vested with powers to allow another 10 days for remittance, but with a surcharge for belated payment). SIV management is understood to have approached the Chairman o f TNEB and prayed for further time. The deadline was extended to July 31.

The SIV management has now approached the State Government praying for time to remit the dues in 10 equal instalments. With just a day to go, the unit is hoping that the Government would be receptive to its request, considering the sluggish market condit ion and mounting stock position.

In early 1997, the unit was pulled up by the State pollution control board for letting untreated effluent into the Bhavani river, following which it was forced to shut down its pulp division.

Its rayon and fibre divisions are also not functioning to optimal capacity, resulting in high production cost. The company has since invested over Rs 30 crore on an effluent treatment plant and purchased nearly 800 acres in and around Sirumugai for disch arging its treated effluent.

Subsequently, because of sluggish market demand and steep fall in the price of viscose fibre, the unit started incurring huge losses, which now stand at Rs 460 crore.

In the event of the TNEB failing to extend the deadline and accept the company's plea to remit its dues in instalments, the unit would have to close down operations. This would render its workforce numbering about 14,000 jobless, besides a slide of Rs 8 crore in the State's revenue, company sources say.