NIC & ICICI Lombard face Rs. 300-crore payout on Fire at Haldiram`s

National Insurance Company Limited and ICICI Lombard may take a combined hit of Rs 300 crore from the fire that gutted the manufacturing unit of Haldiram’s, the biggest sweets and snacks maker in the country. The fire, which had raged for 15 hours from September 6 and had taken more than 100 fire tenders and more than 200 fire-fighters to douse, destroyed a new manufacturing unit with modern machines in Noida’s Sector 68. National Insurance Company has paid the first cheque of Rs 50 crore on account of loss due to fire. “The claim has come due to fire in one of the units which had modern equipment and were manufacturing automated potato chips and other snacks,” said National Insurance Company chairman K Sanath Kumar. “Our claim payout may be around Rs 300 crore including losses due to fire and business interruption,” he said. Kumar said that Haldiram’s is reconstructing the unit quickly so there may not be huge claims due to business interruption. According to an executive aware of the matter, the property damage is estimated at Rs 250 crore and business interruption loss, about Rs 430 crore.