Two firms to install 24 unipoles in Chandigarh

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 4

After many hiccups and delays, Chandigarh is set to see unipoles for the first time as the Municipal Corporation today approved the two highest financial bids filed by companies.

It will be a revenue boost of around Rs 7 crore in five years for the cash-starved corporation. In Group A, Creative Designers had filed the highest bid of Rs 2.57 lakh per month during the e-auction process held at the MC office on Tuesday. In Group B, Graphics Marketing and Advertisement filed the highest bid of Rs 6.41 lakh per month.

Their financial bids were today accepted by the MC.

The two prices quoted are only for the license fee and excludes advertisement fee and GST. There will be 10 per cent annual increase in the advertisement fee.

The two firms will operate on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis in lieu of licence and advertising fee.

The neighbouring towns of Panchkula and Mohali already have unipoles.

The tender the MC floated earlier were cancelled after the Selvel company, one of the biggest alleged defaulters of the corporation, filed a complaint against one of the companies that filed the highest bid. The issue had also rocked the MC House meeting.

Officials said there would be eight big and 16 small unipoles in the city. These unipoles will have the option of LED display.

Most-frequented sites such as Shivalik Garden in Mani Majra, Fun Republic, Elante parking, Sector 34 and Sector 22 will have big unipoles.

The UT Administration had earlier given its consent to the MC for the installation of unipoles for advertisement purpose. As per the policy, unipoles will not be allowed in Sector 1 to 30 due to “protection of heritage”.

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