Kolkata: West Bengal Industry Minister Nirupom Sen has urged the Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik to review the entire disinvestments process of Balmer Lawrie & Company Limited.

Sen said on November 6 that he has written a letter to Naik urging him to give a re- look at the Balmer Lawrie sell-off.

The company should be suitably restructured before carrying out the disinvestment process of the diversified oil sector services company, he said.

Earlier, the Petroleum Ministry suggested that the company be restructured into several units by inviting strategic alliances from other parties.

Since the company has several core and outer core businesses, the ministry favoured that it would be very difficult to find a bidder who might be interested in buying out Balmer Lawrie as a single un-restructured unit.

However, the views of the Petroleum Ministry was turned down by Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie, who favoured that the company be sold as a single unit.

Nearly 16 companies had shown interest in picking up 61.8 per cent government stake in the company. Out of them three later shied away.

PTI