Row over two parking sites defies solution

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, July 26

Top brass of the Municipal Corporation, it seems, is finding it difficult to resolve the row over two paid parking sites at the commercial hub at Feroze Gandhi Market and the Sarabha Nagar I-Block market, as the issue has been lingering on for months.

Cancellation of contracts for these two parking sites, even though recommended by the competent MC officials, has not been cleared by the Finance and Contracts Committee (F&CC) for over two months. While on one hand the shopkeepers in both these markets are facing difficulty due to haphazard parking of vehicles, on the other, the MC is losing much-needed revenue.

An e-auction for the two parking sites, along with a few others, was conducted by the MC in March this year but work orders to the successful bidders were issued in June 2020 after mandatory approval of the bids by the F&CC.

However, both contractors failed to deposit 25 per cent of the bid amount before taking over the parking lots citing Covid-induced lockdown and resultant lower footfall in the markets. They represented to the MC that the licence fee be reduced in proportion to loss in business owing to the lockdown restrictions. The plea made by the contractors was rejected by the MC and it was decided to cancel the contracts and blacklist the contractors for the violation of terms and conditions.

According to sources, the F&CC had not cleared the proposal for cancellation of contracts and blacklisting of contractors till now, allegedly due to political pressure wielded by the bidders. “It is a well-known fact that parking contractors are very well politically connected and several councillors or other functionaries of the ruling party are their ‘benami’ partners to make easy money from the lucrative parking contracts,” maintained sources.

While the MC officials were tight-lipped over this issue, saying that the final decision was the prerogative of the F&CC, the sources indicated that the parking contractors were exerting political pressure to have the contracts their way. In other words, even after default, they could get away with slashed annual licence fee and also avert the threat of being blacklisted for not abiding by the terms and conditions of the contract.

‘Political pressure to blame for delay’

According to sources, the F&CC had not cleared the proposal for cancellation of contracts and blacklisting of contractors till now, allegedly due to political pressure wielded by the bidders. “It is a well-known fact that parking contractors are very well politically connected and several councillors or other functionaries of the ruling party are their ‘benami’ partners to make easy money from the lucrative parking contracts,” maintained sources.