M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Feb 24: Municipal Commissioner of Medinirai Municipal Corporation Sameera S has cancelled the auction of seven shops.
Sources said there was a bidder cartel restricting the competitive bid and that led to the cancellation of the auction.
Sameera S said that she had to cancel the auction as the bidder cartel was blatantly restricting and obstructing the competitive bid for the 7 shops. This cancelled auction would be again held within a short period.
Sources said the action of the municipal commissioner has taken the wind out of the sail of those vested interests that were in cahoots with each other to derail the entire process of auction.
There was an overt design to push the corporation back to the wall but a timely and swift action of the municipal commissioner came with a big watershed.
Sameera S said bidders of the 7 shops whose auction was cancelled are free to take back their security money (Rs. 40,000 each) drawn in favour of the Medinirai municipal corporation by way of the bank draft.
Bidders who were enlisted for the 7 shops and whose auction was cancelled will not have to file another application which costs Rs.1,000 once a re-auction of 7 shops gets underway. Their previous applications will entitle them to participate in the re-auction.
The Medininagar municipal corporation has a fleet of 16 shops. Auction of the first 7 shops was completed without any problem. The highest bid went up to Rs, 1, 07,000 for the first lot of 7 shops.
The Medinirai municipal corporation is toying with putting the remaining 2 shops on the auction too. There was a plan to set up Mukhya Mantri Daal Bhaat Kendra and one medical shop in the remaining two shops.
However, sources said the small size of the shop, a little over 8 square feet, made the corporation not to develop these two shops into Daal Bhat Kendra and medicine shop as well.
Sameera S said, “We will put these two shops also on auction now.”
When asked why the municipal corporation here went to auction its fleet of shops, she said it is to raise revenue.
She said the corporation finds it hard to meet the expenditures by way of salary, pension, gratuity etc of its cleaning staff.
She said these 16 shops are no flag of any poverty alleviation scheme but a straight source of revenue for the fund crunch corporation.
According to information, the corporation had done its homework well before putting it on the auction. It went for market rent value coupled with the annual revenue value.
Sameera S said each of the 16 shops comes in the range of Rs. 800 to 900 as its base value of the auction.
She stated that she studied how DDC Megha Bhardwaj here went for auction of the Zila Parishad shops in the rural areas and taking a cue from her, she decided to go for the auction of the shops right in the heart of Daltonganj.
