Row over norms may delay IPCL selloff

new delhi: the disinvestment of indian petrochemical corporation has taken an interesting twist today, with nirma — one of the strong contendors — proposing some material modifications in the bidding process. according to sources, kalpesh patel, executive director of nirma, along with company’s director finance kaushik patel met the department of disinvestment officials today where they raised the fresh modifications. while the exact details of the meeting could not be ascertained immediately, it is learnt that the nirma top brass have demanded trifurcation of ipcl prior to calling of the financial bids for the psu major. the trifurcation, based on unit-wise — vadodara, nagothane and gandhar — is proposed for allowing the bidders to bid for the individual companies instead of the current plan of bidding for the company as a whole, sources said. despite repeated attempts, kalpesh patel could not be contacted for his comments on the meeting with the dod officials. nirma has reportedly demanded the trifurcation of ipcl because bidding for individual units would considerably bring down the cost of vrs to be offered to the employees of ipcl post-acquisition. sources said according to the estimates made by some of the prospective bidders, ipcl has a huge surplus of employees — about 8,000, and cost for offering vrs to the surplus will be huge if ipcl is acquired as a single company. the nirma executives are also learnt to have asked for dropping of the call and put option.