Chauhan and Coke signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to this effect on Tuesday. The sale will be completed by mid-October.

Significantly, the Mumbai bottling units, owned by Ramesh Chauhan's brother, Prakash, are not a part of the deal.

Ramesh Chauhan had earlier indicated that the deal would include both the Delhi and Mumbai bottling units. However, Prakash Chauhan is unwilling to sell his bottling units. He has, so far, not taken part in the negotiations with Coke.

Commenting on the deal, the official spokesperson for Coca Cola India, Rahul Dhawan, said: "We have arrived at an MoU for purchase of Ramesh Chauhan's two bottling units in Delhi".

The much-touted deal between Coke and Chauhan had run into rough weather as Coke wanted Chauhan to scale down the price of the deal. Coke officials indicated that outstanding issues such as price have now been sorted out.

This is the second major deal between Ramesh Chuhan and Coca Cola. He had sold popular Parle brands Limca, Thums Up, Mazaa and Citra to Coke in 1993 for a reported price of $60 million. The sell-off had given Coke, who had just entered India, an instant market leadership in the soft drinks sector in India.

Out of the two bottling units, Coolaid is wholly-owned by Ramesh Chauhan while he and his brother Prakash Chauhan hold 50 per cent each in Delhi Bottling Company (DBC).

Ramesh Chauhan has signed an agreement with his brother to buy out his 50 per cent stake in DBC for an undisclosed sum.

Meanwhile, Chauhan on Wednesday told a news agency that the bottling plant in Mumbai, where both the brothers have an equal stake, would also be sold to Coca Cola in a month's time. The Mumbai and Delhi plants are expected to fetch around Rs 250 crore for the Chauhans.

"Details of the Mumbai sale are being worked out. We (Ramesh and Prakash) will split the operations vertically between the two of us," Chauhan said.

According to the MoU signed with Coca Cola, Chauhan would sell assets and businesses of DBC and Coolaid while keeping the land and building to himself.

The sale would include physical transfer of machinery, 45 trucks and the entire marketing personnel to Coca Cola. The DBC and Coolaid combine bottled two million cases a year compared to seven million cases by the Mumbai bottling unit.

Chauhan said he would now concentrate on building the Bisleri brand, which is targetting a Rs 1,000-crore turnover by the turn of the century. He said he would set up new lines at the two plants for manufacturing Bisleri soda and Bisleri mineral water.

Incidentally, Bisleri soda's five-year bottling agreement with Coca Cola is ending in November. He said Bisleri has tied up with Cadbury Schweppes to bottle the soda in their units after the agreement with Coke expires.

The sale of the bottling units would bring down the curtain on a turbulent relationship between Chauhan and Coke.

Chauhan, a staunch critic of foreign investment in soft drinks, has been at loggerheads with Coke on a variety of issues including moves to set up holding companies for "integrating" bottling units.