Post-restrucuring, the company will be left with its central air-conditioning & refrigeration business group (AC & RBG), and a small part of capital goods & engineering division.

Confirming the plan, a top Voltas official said: "The divisions that are sagging the bottomline of the company have to be shed. ``The company is now serious about continuing with its air-conditioning and capital goods division. ``The trading activities of the company for mining and construction business and the chemicals business will, however, continue."The Allwyn modular steel furniture business, which was part of its white goods division, will be phased out and the company proposes to utilise the facility to provide steel fittings for the fridges.

The company's textile machinery division suffered huge losses during the South East Asian currency crisis, while the materials handling division has been languishing due to the on-going recession and consequent drop in demand for forklift trucks as well as cranes.

The loss-making subsidiaries of Voltas, sources say, may also be on the block soon. The company has incurred a one-time loss on disposal of its loss-making susbidiary, Premium Granites, which has a low capacity utilisation resulting in scaling down of its business operations significantly.

The company has also made a provision for the diminution in value of its investment in another of its loss-making subsidiaries, Voltas Switchgear Ltd.For the year ended March 31, 2000 the company reported a 57.07 per cent dip in net profit to Rs 5.49 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2000 from Rs 12.79 crore reported in the previous year. However, its operating profit (before tax and extraordinary items) went up to Rs 6.9 crore against a loss of Rs 11.92 crore in 1998-99.

The sales and services of the company declined due to hiving off the chemicals plant at Patancheru to Ralchem a subisidiry of Rallis India and part of the white goods business to Electrolux during the year 1998-99 which had contributed a clsh flow of Rs 224.40 crore.

The core business activity-central air-conditioning plant and room air-conditioners of Voltas has, however, registered an increase of 6 per cent growth over the previous year's turnover. Voltas' net sales and income from operations also dipped by 16.25 per cent to Rs 824.33 crore from Rs 984.28 crore reported last year.