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GMDC posts Rs 62.19-cr net

Our Bureau

AHMEDABAD, April 30

GUJARAT Mineral Development Corporation Ltd (GMDC) has posted a net profit of Rs 62.19 crore on sale of Rs 218.21 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001. This reflected a 65 per cent rise over the Rs 37.57-crore net registered the previous year on a turnover of Rs 188.92 crore.

Among one of the largest tax payers in the State, GMDC's tax for the year was Rs 47.07 crore, thus putting the profit before tax at Rs 109.26 crore (Rs 71.80 crore). Operational expenditure for the period was pegged at Rs 59.38 crore (Rs 49.21 crore).

Talking to reporters here today, the Managing Director of GMDC, Mr Ashok Narayan, said the company was likely to achieve the financial closure of the Rs 1,400-crore, 250 MW Akrimota power project for which GMDC was generating the entire equity portion of Rs 300 crore from internal accruals, by June-July.

Having already expended Rs 130 crore in the project, the debt portion of Rs 1,100 crore was being handled by an IDBI-led consortium where the lead institution had pledged Rs 500 crore.

``We are looking at the prospect of restarting fresh mining work at the Akrimota, Mata No Madh and Umarsar fields which were on hold for over a year after the February 16, 2000 Supreme Court interim order that had banned fresh mining within a 10-km radiu s of the Chinkara Sanctuary in Kutch district. With the Justice Divecha Commission clearing the Mata No Madh as a mineable area and the Supreme Court ruling in our favour last week, GMDC is looking for favourable rulings on the other two sites as well,'' Mr Narayan said.

Mr Narayan said the lignite produced by GMDC was competing with imported coal on the one side and side products such as petcoke from Reliance and bagasse on the other and making a good job of it.

The other two projects on the cards were a 375 MW power project in Bhavnagar, to be jointly developed with the Gujarat State Energy Generation (GSEG) and the revival of the `multi-metal' project in Ambaji on the Rajasthan border along with Binani Cement and Rajasthan State Mineral Development Corporation, where GMDC would interact with RBW (Rajasthan Binani White).