After 5 failures, Mohali MC gives ad tender another go

After municipal corporation (MC) failed to allot ₹31-crore advertisement tender five times in a row, the civic body will open the technical bid on Friday after it had invited tender for the sixth time last month. This time, the tender amount has been reduced from ₹31 crore to ₹28.5 crore.

During the past couple of MC House meetings, councillors accused the MC officials of corruption and deliberately not initiating a vigilance probe into the matter despite passing the resolution. The councillors questioned how the civic body had failed to achieve its proposed income of ₹31 crore in 2023-2024 through advertisement tender, earning just ₹6.11 crore, despite hoardings being allotted across the city.

After five failed attempts to draw bidders, now, the MC has now divided the advertising sites into six separate tenders. Initially, there were 339 sites, but 19 have been removed by the civic body due to ongoing road widening by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in Phases 8 to 11.

MC eyeing revenue from bus queue shelters, toilet blocks as well

The 198 sites, which will be available for ₹26.66 crore, including unipoles, gantry and billboards, will be divided into four zones. Meanwhile, another category has been created for 33 bus queue shelters and a sixth category for 89 toilet blocks across the city

In 2015, the MC had allotted over 10 separate advertisement tenders for a total of 186 sites at ₹9.24 crore. In 2018, 10% rates were increased and ₹9.72 crore tender was allotted.

Amid the pandemic, contractors had surrendered the sites citing hefty losses. Later in 2023, 153 new sites were added with the total number being raised to 339. The civic body, however, had also increased the rates of the previous 186 sites by 24% and came up with a proposal of ₹31 crore for a total of 339 sites. The tender, however, remained unsuccessful five times.

Earlier, after four failed attempts to draw bidders for the ₹31-crore advertisement tender in financial year 2023-24, MC in its fifth attempt had divided the city into four zones with separate smaller tenders, with hopes of finding contractors in the 2024-25 fiscal but to no avail.

Pandemonium prevailed in the past two House meetings over advertisement tenders, following which, councillors accused the MC officials of corruption.

Meanwhile, a senior MC official, while expressing disappointment over the allegations, said a proposal was tabled before the House in March 2023, in which a tender price of ₹30 crore was suggested by officials.

“We proposed ₹30 crore tender rate before the House in 2023 after adding 153 new sites in the tender. The House, including the mayor, deputy mayor and councillors, increased the tender price to ₹31 crore.

The proposal was further approved by the local bodies department. Shockingly, the councillors and deputy mayor later objected to the rates and sought a probe. Now, by floating separate six tenders, we are hopeful of getting the bidders and getting the expected revenue,” an MC officer said.

Meanwhile, Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu said the tenders could nwot be allotted earlier due to the nexus of available players in the business. “All bidders earlier jointly decided not to make any bid to force the state government to slash the tender price. As we want to earn revenue,” the mayor added.