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Uttar Pradesh invites bids to sell 10 sugar mills

India's largest sugarcane producing state of Uttar Pradesh on Friday invited bids to sell 10 sugar mills, which have remained shut for the past two years due to losses.

"These mills had become economically unviable due to outdated technology and over-employment," an official of the state-run Uttar Pradesh State Sugar Corporation Ltd said from Lucknow.

The corporation owns 35 sugar mills.

Uttar Pradesh, which is the country's second largest producer of sugar, has about 110 sugar mills including units in the private and co-operative sectors.

"There are no liabilities of financial institutions, labour dues and other debts on these mills and 91 per cent of workers have already accepted (a) voluntary retirement scheme," the corporation said in a newspaper advertisement, inviting bids.

There would be no obligation on buyers to engage the remaining workers, it added.

The corporation fixed a combined reserve price of Rs 1.78 billion for the 10 mills.

The last date for submitting bids is September 20.

Total crushing capacity of these mills is about 12,000 tonnes of sugarcane per day, the corporation official said.

Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state with about 166 million people, produces 4.75 million tonnes of sugar a year, 28 per cent of India's production.

Earlier, Arun Kumar Mishra, the state's sugar industries secretary, said buyers of the loss-making sugar mills would get a five-year tax holiday.

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