Panel to probe why Mohali advt’s sites have no takers

After an uproar at Mohali municipal corporation (MC) House meeting last week as councillors questioned delay in a vigilance probe into the MC’s failure to allot ₹31-crore advertisement tender five times, the civic body is likely to constitute a seven-member committee to evaluate the failure.
The committee will include two councillors from different political parties, city mayor, MC commissioner besides other MC officials to analyse the reasons of failure in allotting the tender.
Pandemonium prevailed in the past two house meetings over advertisement tenders, following which councillors accused the MC officials of corruption. 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.
Annoyed with the corporation’s continuous failure, councillors asked mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu to fix accountability of officers.
After the mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, besides MC commissioner were also blamed for the failure, deputy mayor Kuljit Singh Bedi said he had written a letter to the local bodies director on June 18, seeking a probe for failure and for fixing responsibility of the officers concerned.
“The idea is to ensure transparency. There was no foul play but since a few councillors raised suspicion, we will include them in the committee to evaluate the sites and the rates”, said mayor Amarjeet Singh Sidhu.
Meanwhile a senior MC official while expressing disappointment over the allegations said that 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 last year after adding 153 new sites in the tender. The house including mayor, deputy mayor and the councillors increased the tender price to ₹31 crore. The proposal was further approved by the local bodies department. Shockingly, now the councillors and deputy mayor are objecting to the rates and seeking a probe,” said an MC official.
MC to float tender for the sixth time
In 2015, the MC had allotted over 10 separate advertisement tenders for a total 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 total number of being raised to 339. The civic body, however, had also increased the rates of previous 186 sites by 24% and came up with a proposal of ₹31 crore for a total 339 sites. The tender however remained unsuccessful for five times.
Now, the MC has 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 Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) in Phases 8 to 11.
The tender amount has also been reduced from ₹31 crore to around ₹28.5 crore.
198 sites which will be available for ₹26 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.