Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 68

62
PRATAP BHOGILAL - JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
In hindsight, selling Shree Ram Mills to S. Kumar's was an unwise move
A day before my signing the deal with S.Kumar's, I got a call from the Executive Director of the Central Bank requesting me to see him. If | remember the name correctly, it was Paramjit Singh. We had two other Bankers - the Bank of Baroda and the UCO Bank - in the consortium, and we had kept them informed about our decision to sell the shares. When 1 went to see Singh, he told me that Dhirubhai was agreeable to our terms. Since we had committed to S. Kumar's by then, I was not in favour of going back on my word. He suggested that we meet the Chairman of the Bank, P.F. Gutta, and apprise him of the situation.
During our meeting, I told Gutta that since the Central Bank was our lender, I would have to agree if he directed me to sell our shares to Dhirubhai, but it would amount to my going back on my word to S.Kumar's. It would upset me since I valued my word more than money. After some discussion, Gutta agreed with me. So we declined Dhirubhai's offer and signed the deal with S.Kumar's the next day at the residence of Amritlal Jasani, who was my sister's father-in-law. In hindsight, I feel selling our share holding to Dhirubhai might have served the interests of our mill better. But then, it was more important for us to honour our commitment. We didn't want to compromise on our credibility. S.Kumar's wanted me to continue as the MD of SRM on the same terms as before, I agreed.
It wasn't long, however, before I realized that SRM was fast running into arrears of statutory dues. The management was unable to clear the PF and ESI dues in spite of my meeting the respective Commissioners in charge and getting extensions of the deadlines for payment of the dues three or four times. I also realised that S. Kumar's were selling SRM cloth to their own firm at unfair prices and thus SRM was continuing to make losses. Things only got worse with time and I was worried about getting into
Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don't want them to
become politicians in the process - John Fitzgerald Kennedy