HYDERABAD, April 12: The pros and cons of privatizing the Thatta and Dadu sugar mills must be carefully weighed as selling them at throw-away prices will serve no purpose. This was stated by the adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on Information and Archives, Salahuddin Haider, in a statement issued here on Sunday.

He said that against the total assets of Rs1.3 billion of the two mills, Rs200 million - Rs150 million for the Dadu Sugar Mill and Rs50 million for the Thatta mill - was the maximum offers received from the bidders so far.

Terming the offered amounts peanuts, the adviser said that the bidders, after buying the mills, seemed to be interested in selling off their valuable lands and machines as scrap than in running them.

The adviser said that he was not against the privatisation but it must serve some purpose. He said that pressure from the donor agencies to privatize government industries could be warded off through dialogue as had been done in the case of a World Bank demand to merge the provincial finance, revenue and excise and taxation departments into a broad- based agency.

He elaborated that the Sindh cabinet had resisted the pressure and succeeded in convincing the bank that by creating such an agency, an octopus would be created whose burden would be heavier on exchequer than that of separately running the departments.

Mr Hadier urged the Sindh Privatisation Committee to take up the matter with the federal government and convince it that instead of disposing off national assets in scandalous form, it would be better if the mills were made functional again and 50,000 families, whose livelihood was directly or indirectly connected with the mills, were taken care of.

He said that the state would also benefit from resuming operation of the mills which had machinery in perfect condition as well as trained and skilled staff.

He agreed with the mill workers that they should either be offered golden handshake if the privatization was necessary or buyers should be bound down to retain them in service for at least one year.

Earlier, Mr Haider and Provincial Adviser for Public Affairs Manzoor Hussain distributed cheques of two-month salaries to 1,050 employees of the Dadu Sugar Mill. The Thatta Sugar Mill is closed since 1995 and the Dadu mill has remained inoperative since 1999.