Civic body’s plan to sell shops hits roadblock

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 24

The scheme of the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) to increase its income by selling its 328 shops, which were on rent, has been hanging fire.

The MCB was expecting to earn revenue of around Rs 15 crore but a survey says that the civic body can sell only 136 shops at present in the city as the remaining shops are the one for which cases are going on in the High Court or district courts.

Now, the MCB is expected to earn revenue of Rs 6 crore at present. The civic body will start getting revenue of Rs 70,000-80,000 as property tax every year from these old shops.

The MCB was getting around Rs 50 lakh each year as rent from these shops. The rent from these 136 shops was Rs 20 lakh per year.

Facing economic crisis, the MCB has to sell these shops to give one month salary to employees.

At present, the Municipal Corporation says that there is a dispute with tenants over rent and cases are being pursued in court.

Lakhs of rupees are spent to fight court cases and completed other formalities, the civic body has said.

To solve the problem, the government has decided to sell the shops for a lump sum amount and give ownership rights to the shopkeepers.

A proposal will be brought in the general house meeting to be held in December. After the passing of the proposal, work will be started at the ground level to sell the shops.

The Local Bodies Department had prepared a plan for giving more income to the municipal corporations struggling financially.

Under this scheme, a decision was taken to give the ownership rights to the people who have taken the corporation’s shops on rent.

For this, a committee headed by the Municipal Commissioner that also included four superintendents was constituted.

The committee surveyed around 350 MCB’s shops situated in the city. It surfaced that for 200 shops, cases are going on in the High Court.

For such shops, the matter is sub judice and hence the Municipal Corporation can not initiate any kind of process related to their sale.

Most of the MCBs shops are located in the area near the railway station, Gandhi Market, Mall Road and fish market.