In a communication to the Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, the federation convener SP Singh on Tuesday said the dealers would extend full managerial and financial support for marketing and distribution operations.

The federation told Vajpayee that the Tamil Nadu Government had already sought dealers' response to revive Dunlop's sub-urban Ambattur unit near Chennai.

``The Centre should take a balanced stand, without delay, to revive the company,'' Singh said. The federation said majority of tyre dealers had been financially marginalised due to mismanagement and malpractices of present management of Dunlop India Ltd, which was yet to reimburse them the security deposits paid by them.

``Due to poor track record of the management, it cannot be trusted on the facevalue on their plans to revive the company,'' the federation said. The federation had earlier communicated to Vajpayee that the company's market share had slumped to 2.5 per cent in 1996-97 from a position of market leader with 19 per cent market share in the beginning of 1990-91.

In a related development, top management of the company met Basu on Monday to discuss ways and means for reopening the company.

While the Dunlop management described the meeting to be extremely cordial, sources in the Chief Minister's secretariat said that Basu was ``partially receptive.''

Secretariat sources said that the Chief Minister had asked Dunlop representatives to talk to banks, employees and BIFR for reopening the closed two manufacturing units, one each in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.

While seeking State's help for retrenching 3,000 employees, the Dunlop management was advised instead by Basu to discuss the issue with trade unions before talking to the West Bengal Government.