MC lowers reserve price by Rs4 cr

Harshraj Singh
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, December 6

The Ludhiana Municipal Corporation (MC) has reduced the reserved price from Rs 27.15 crore to Rs 23.02 crore for outdoor media tenders as it failed twice to find bidders.

Besides, the civic body has included “controversial” 73 bus queue shelters to the outdoor media devices, which would be handed over to the MCL.The contract for existing 73 bus queue shelters would end on September 3, 2019. Then, the successful bidder would be allowed to use these bus queue shelters.

Notably, Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh had directed the MC authorities to cancel the contract for these bus queue shelters, citing irregularities and loss of revenue. The minister had alleged a scam in set up of bus queue shelters in the city, adding that action would be taken against the officials as well. Though the MC had served the notice to the firm concerened but no action was taken in this regard.

The civic body officials claimed that they have made the conditions more attractive and relaxing than before. An official said the construction of 53 public utilities would be done by the Ludhiana Smart City Limited whereas these would be provided to successful bidder for advertisement. The successful bidder would maintain them and daily cleaning work would be done by the Ludhiana Smart City Limited.

“The construction of utilities will be done by the Ludhiana Smart City Limited. It will reduce the investment of successful bidder. Dustbins and garbage dumps have been excluded as well,” said Joint Commissioner Kulpreet Singh.

Inder Aggarwal, former BJP councillor, had earlier alleged that advertisement mafia was behind non allotment of previous tenders. He had also asked Local Bodies Minister to conduct a probe in this regard.