New Delhi, June 4 :     Groaning under a mountain of debt and stalked by creditors, Pure Drinks' fortunes have taken a turn for the worse with the Punjab and Haryana high court asking the company to sell off two properties in Ludhiana and Delhi. The cash-strapped company - makers of the Campa range of soft drinks - owes more than Rs 100 crore to its creditors, and the court's order is aimed at ferreting out some of that money. According to the order, if the amount raised from the auction of the two properties is insufficient to repay numerous creditors, the company will have to be wound up. More important, all this will have to be completed in 45 days. The properties identified are a plot in Ludhiana, which has a bottling plant and other facilities, and another in Nazafgarh. Their sale is expected to fetch the company no more than Rs 10 crore, raising fears that closure might be imminent. The property sale is the first in a series of selloffs that may be necessary to pay off scores of creditors who sought court intervention after Delhi-based cola-maker was wracked by internecine squabbles even as it struggled to hold on to its market share in the presence of stronger competitors. The Singh brothers had appointed S B Billimoria & Co and Bansi S Mehta & Co to restructure the loss-laden company. The decision followed an understanding signed between the owners of Pure Drinks - Satwant Singh, Ajit Singh and their aunt, Harjeet Kaur, in August last year. Under the agreement, the company was supposed to appoint a consultant who would identify the assets and businesses which are viable, and those which could be put on the block. Pure Drinks has idle assets in Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai, and they are estimated to be worth Rs 300 crore. The faction-ridden company had weathered the onslaught of Pepsi and Coke initially but later, as the promoters' squabbles and competition intensified, it slipped into the red. In 1998-99, it suffered a net loss of more than Rs 5 crore. The troubles became bigger, as did the losses in 1999-2000. 'We want to sell off Pure Drinks' properties in a phased manner. This will include, among other things, bottling plants in Calcutta and Mumbai, and some prime property in Chennai. But first, we intend to wipe out our liabilities and infuse funds into the company,' Ajit Singh had said earlier. The Calcutta has a bottling capacity of 220 bottles per minute while the one in Mumbai plant can turn out 600 bottles in the same time. Both rolled down their shutters five years ago after acute labour problems, which broke out after some workers were laid off, made it difficult to run them. The retrenchments were the company's response to a sharp decline in Campa's sales after it lost out to Parle's Thumbs Up and Limca in a bruising cola skirmish. The problem was that the faltering company decided to lay off employees to tide over the decline in sales, but could not rustle up enough funds to give them adequate compensation. Not being able to manage anymore, the Singh family had to close down the plant. Problems increased last year when a Supreme Court order on phasing out 15-year-old commercial vehicles threw the company's distribution network in disarray. Forty of the 100 vehicles used for deliveries were forced to go off the roads immediately. Added to this was another labour unrest, which led to the dismissal of 22 workers at the plant in the capital. Poor finances have never allowed the company to indulge in marketing gimmicks - something that is de rigeur for other cola companies today - and that has meant sales losses, even though there can be no precise figures to back it. The Campa range of soft drinks had recorded a 45 per cent increase in sales in 1995-96 but could only manage to break even in 1997-98, an indication of how Pure Drinks lost its way over the years. That the conflict between the Singh brothers is still raging is telling evidence of the company's poor shape, and its failure to overcome problems. The siblings do not see eye to eye on the company's financial matters. While Satwant says the money raised from selling off the properties identified by the Punjab and Haryana High Court will be inadequate to repay creditors and that the company may have to be wound up, Ajit thinks otherwise.