Mohali MC finally allots five advertisement tenders in sixth attempt

After municipal corporation (MC) failed to allot ₹31-crore advertisement tender five times in a row and later reduced the amount to ₹28.5 crore, the civic body on Tuesday finally allotted five separate tenders worth ₹27.78 crore to a Ludhiana-based company in the sixth attempt. The finance and contract committee (F&CC) of the MC has approved the advertisement tenders during a meeting.

Mohali mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu said, “This is a significant step for the MC as these five contracts are expected to generate huge revenue for the civic body. One tender, which required technical clarity, has been referred for legal advice and will be decided in the next meeting.”

‘Jacked up’ bid leaves 6th tender hanging

However, MC failed to allot the sixth tender due to a major glitch. The company, which got five tenders, made a wrong bid for the sixth one and quoted an exorbitant bid of ₹16 crore for advertisement at 33 bus queue shelters, giving a pleasant surprise to the MC officials who were eyeing to generate a high revenue through the bid.

Realising their mistake, the company officials later approached the MC officials and informed them that they had to quote ₹1.65 lakh for the bus queue shelters but made a clerical mistake.

MC, eventually, allotted five tenders to the company and sent a special case for reference and consideration to the local bodies government.

“The company made the bid of ₹16 crore for advertisement at 33 bus queue shelters and thus they should have paid ₹44 crore in total to the MC as per the rule or else it should have been blacklisted. However, the MC approved their five tenders and surprisingly sent the file for consideration for the sixth tender to the higher authorities,” an MC officer said.

Meanwhile, Sidhu said since the company realised its mistake within less than an hour and alerted the MC officials, their case was sent to the local bodies government.

“It was a clerical mistake and thus, we did not give them the tender. We have not incurred any loss as we can again open the tender for the bus queue shelters and we might get more bids than this for the same. The director of the local government bodies will decide on this now,” the mayor added.

Work orders worth ₹3 crore approved

During the F&CC meeting, work orders amounting ₹3 crore were approved for various development projects in the city. The meeting was attended by senior deputy mayor Amreek Singh Somal and commissioner T Benith, besides other MC officials.

During the last three MC House meetings, councillors accused the officials of corruption and of not initiating a vigilance probe into the matter deliberately 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.

Initially, there were 339 sites, but 19 were removed by the civic body due to ongoing road widening by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in Phases 8 to 11. 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.