Chandigarh MC slashes fee for booking grounds for political campaigns

The Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) on Friday slashed the fee for booking grounds for political campaigns following requests by the Congress and the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

In a request to the election department, political leaders had said political parties were forced to spend ₹16,000 for each ground booking in the city. In addition to it, candidates were spending additional costs for tents, chairs and other arrangements.

Accepting their requests, the corporation has decided to accept bookings from political candidates and candidates for political campaigns on per hour basis instead of per day basis. For each hour, MC will charge ₹500 as booking cost and ₹2,000 for sanitation charges, apart from 18% GST on booking and sanitation charges.

MC also clarified that for bookings already done earlier, no claim regarding refund of fee based on actual hours of use will be entertained. The fresh rates shall be applicable for bookings done after May 10.

“While applying for permission, we discovered that the fee to book such venues is colossal and extremely exorbitant. Even to hold a meeting of about 50 odd people, the fee being demanded is as high as ₹16,000. The rates should be fixed at a nominal and reasonable rate for the simple reason that other political parties, especially those who do not have adequate financial resources would find it insurmountable to hold/conduct political meetings,” the Congress had said in the request.