The Hindu 25.03.2010

Corporation launches e-auction facility

Special Correspondent

Photo: Special Arrangement

INNOVATIVE INITIATIVE: Mayor R. Venkatachalam launches the e-auction facility at the Coimbatore Corporation office on Wednesday.

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Corporation launched on Wednesday an e-auction facility that enabled contractors to bid from anywhere for lease of parking lots, markets and public toilets.

“It is a grand success. The amount quoted for some public utilities is double than last year,” Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra said.

The Corporation said it had brought 33 public utility areas under the e-auction system.

Response

Of these, 10 were taken up on Wednesday. But, nine got online response. Sealed tender had to be opened for the other one because of no online response, officials said.

Another 23 items would be taken up for e-auction on Thursday.

The e-auction had done away with the presence of unauthorised persons, a problem regularly faced by the Corporation during the conventional bidding.

Besides this, the State Government too issued orders recently that prohibited even elected representatives of local bodies from entering the auction centres.

Officials said the e-auction would also help in eliminating the problem of syndicates cornering a major chunk or even all the public utility areas.

An official said the bidding on Wednesday saw substantially higher amounts quoted, compared to the ones last year.

The highest bid that was made for the two-wheeler parking lot at Singanallur Bus Stand was Rs.13.77 lakh on Sunday. But, it was only around Rs.5 lakh last year.

The parking lot near the water tank on D.B. Road had the highest bid of Rs.18.66 lakh, compared to Rs.11 lakh last year.

Pay and use toilets too had attracted higher sums than last year.

This had happened despite the Corporation not raising the user charges at the parking lots or toilets.

Therefore, this was proof of the e-auction providing no space for syndicates to decide low sums, the official said.