HYDERABAD: The House Committee of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly on the Government-owned Nizam Sugars Limited, headed by J. Ratnakar Rao, has reportedly come out with some startling revelations about the formation of joint venture by the previous Telugu Desam regime.

Firstly, the committee concluded that there was no need for the then Government to club the loss-making units with those making profit even if it wanted to sell some of them. The proposal of the Delta Paper Mill (DPM) of West Godavari district for a joint venture should have been rejected outright by the Implementation Secretariat.

The private company reportedly did not make any payments for taking over either NSL Sugar Mill and its distillery and 171 acres of land (valued at Rs. 30 crore) at Shakarnagar in Nizamabad district or the two NSL units of Karimnagar and Medak. The then Government, in turn, allowed exemptions, concessions, waiver of loans and made VRS payments to the tune of Rs. 300 crore.

Another irregularity reported by the committee was the conduct of a Cabinet Sub-Committee meeting on December 31, 2001, to consider the DPM proposal wherein no member of the panel attended the meeting.

A large number of permanent employees were removed on oral orders, it was found. The sale deeds too were irregular on several counts. It found fault with the Implementation Secretariat for having delivered the land to the DPM without receiving any payments. Another disclosure is the omission of the machinery sold and under-valuation of its assets.

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