The Coimbatore-based textile spinning monolith, Lakshmi Mills Company (LMC) Ltd is likely to stir up a hornet's nest with it's 88th annual report. The company is today one up amongst it's peers, detailing in its `notes to accounts' donations paid to political parties.

Out of the total donations of Rs 22.94 lakh made during the financial year 1997-98, major political parties were paid a total amount of Rs 10.50 lakh. The chunk of this was cornered by the three regional political parties-- TMC, AIADMK and MDMK. This is perhaps the first time a major Tamil Nadu corporate has taken a bold step to disclose donations made to political parties to fight elections.

The Rs 193-crore company `donated' Rs 5 lakh to TMC, Rs 2.50 lakh to AIADMK and Rs 1.50 lakh each to MDMK and BJP. Considered to set a precedence for similar `transparentcorporate payments' to political parties, the disclosure of donations comes amidst claims of the textile spinning industry being gripped by one of the worst crisis `forcing' it to seek government freebies and embark on cost cutting measures including a wage freeze.

On the absence of the ruling DMK from the list of donees, a source pointed out that funds were given to alliance partners to finance the early 1998 Lok Sabha elections. Hence, TMC's alliance with DMK justified for the former getting the highest donation from the company.

Though LMC had reported a good performance for the 1997-98 financial year earning net profit of Rs 4.25 crore (Rs 1.26 crore) on a higher turnover of Rs 193.77 crore (Rs 183.11 crore), the company incurred a net loss of Rs 1.12 crore for the first quarter of 1998-99. The company was forced to cut down production by 20 per cent following poor yarn offtake and building up of inventories.