Now, CHB to go with e-tendering

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 15

To stop cartelisation, the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) has decided to introduce e-tendering for auction of residential and commercial properties.

The CHB has prepared a list of 270 properties, including 11 residential (leasehold), 109 residential (freehold) and 150 commercial (leasehold), for auction.

A senior official of the CHB said instead of e-auction, e-tenders would be invited for each property separately to maintain secrecy and to prevent cartelisation. The bidders would be able to submit the bid only once against the reserve price of the property, he added.

To get a good response, the CHB has reduced the reserve price of the properties by 10 per cent, as not even a single bidder expressed interest in the auction of CHB properties as the reserve price was too high for both residential and commercial properties last year.

The residential properties to be put up for sale are in Sector 51, Sector 63, Sector 38-W, Sector 39, and Mani Majra. The commercial properties to go under the hammer are in Mani Majra, Sector 51, Sector 61 and Maloya.

The properties to be auctioned include nearly 51 new flats in Sector 51. Several properties of the board, both commercial and residential, have been lying vacant in Mani Majra, Sector 45, 41, 47, 39, 38-West, 49 and 51 for quite a long time.

Last year, the CHB had put up 64 residential and 148 commercial properties for auction. The reserve price for a freehold three-bedroom flat in Sector 63 was Rs1.07 crore and the reserve price for the Sector 39 leasehold HIG flats was Rs1.31 crore. Nine leasehold and 55 freehold properties were put up for auction last year.

Check on cartelisation

A senior official of the CHB said instead of e-auction, e-tenders would be invited for each property separately to maintain secrecy and to prevent cartelisation. The bidders would be able to submit the bid only once against the reserve price of the property.