Civic body to seal shops of defaulting tenants

Charnajit Singh Teja
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 16

The Municipal Corporation (MC) will start a sealing drive at various markets, where tenants have not been paying the rent. The Municipal Corporation has around 1,105 shops in 50 markets of the city. Most of the shops are on the outer circular road and on the prime locations. Around 550 properties have been identified where tenants didn’t pay rent for years. The Estate Wing of the MC had issued notices to the defaulter tenants a few weeks back. But most of the defaulters did not pay their dues till date.

Sushant Bhatia, Estate Officer, MC, said, “We have prepared a list of defaulter shopkeepers, who are not paying the rent for years. There are several tenants who did not pay a single penny for 20 years. We have to collect Rs 82 lakh from these defaulters.”

Now, the Estate Wing officials have written to the senior officials of Municipal Corporation to start the sealing drive to press the defaulters to pay rent. The shops of MC are located at Golbagh Taxi Stand market, Tirkoni Market, Beri Gate Market, Bhushanpura B Block Market, Hathi Gate Market, Kot Atama Singh Market, Gurdwara Saheedan Market and Guru Ramdas Hospital market.

“Several notices have been sent in the past. Now, we will seal the shops of defaulter next week,” said Bhatia.

The MC had offered the tenants to buy the shops in 2019. Around 600 tenants showed their interest to buy the shops but many of them reluctant to pay the dues. The MC asked them to pay their due and then buy the shop.