The cash-strapped NTL expects to raise Rs 750 million by selling almost one-third of its 51 ropanis of land at Teku. It plans to repay Rs 140 million out of the total long-term loans of Rs 370 million that it has taken from different banks. [break]
The Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) has already approved the proposal to sell the land and forwarded it to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for its consent.
Jib Raj Ghimire, under secretary at MoCS, said the ministry has endorsed the plan to ward off looming financial crisis in the state-owned trader.
In addition to 76 ropanis of land in different parts of the capital, NTL owns hundreds of ropanis of land in trading hubs like Dhangadhi, Nepalgunj, Surkhet, Bhairahawa, Pokhara, Birjunj, Biratnagar, Dang and Dhankuta.
“As demanded by the finance ministry, we have almost finalized our business plan that targets to increase NTL’s transaction volume four-fold,” Laxman Agrawal, general Manager of NTL, told Republica Monday. He said NTL is opening at least four petrol pumps outside the capital and two Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) bottling plants in central and western part of the country.
“We are planning to set up at least one petrol pump in each district. In the first phase, we will open at least four petrol pumps and two LPG bottling plants in districts where we own land to end supplies anomalies in the market,” Agrawal added. He further added that the state-owned trader has a long-term plan of setting up a petrol pump in each districts.
NTL’s trading has been limited to cement, petroleum products, machineries and food commodities in the last couple of years after the government announced to stop trading of duty-free liquors that used to command the major portion of its transaction volume.
“Along with starting new business, we are also planning to expand trading of construction materials,” said Agrawal. He informed Republica that NTL would use Rs 200 million to get rid of about 50 percent of workers through golden handshake. NTL has been spending Rs 65 million to pay salary to its around 400 staff.
“With the implementation of new plan, we can raise our annual transactions to Rs 2 billion from existing Rs 500 million and also reduce our salary expenditure by at least 50 percent,” he added.
Though NTL owns Rs 5 billion worth of assets, including land, building and inventory, it has been facing cash crunch due to shrinking business volume for the last couple of years.
Last year, the finance ministry had sanctioned Rs 100 million to NTL to repay its loans and finance other expenditures.
prabhakarji@gmail.com
Related story
NFC, NTL to diversify business to be competitive in market afte...
