The Indian Express               28.06.2013

4 of 13 parking sites auctioned, no bids for rest

The Ludhiana Municipal Corporation, in an auction that went on till late Wednesday evening at Zone-D office, managed to sell only four sites out of a total of 13 for parking on Ferozepur road.

The auction was held as per Punjab and Haryana High Court orders that ordered the Municipal Corporation 'to convert parking on Ferozepur road into paid parking' and abiding by that, the MC divided the road into 13 sites (30 blocks) till Sidhwan canal and invited bids.

A total of 27 bidders participated in the bidding on Wednesday.

Four sites which were sold off are New Court Road to Feroze Gandhi Market (went for Rs 13.10 lakh /base price was Rs 10.08 lakh), Park Plaza to Punjab Furniture (went under the hammer for Rs 23 lakh/ base price was Rs 11.95 lakh), Pathcare Diagnostic Labs to Aarti Chowk (went for Rs 25,00,00/ base price was Rs 13.68 lakh) and Aarti Chowk to Gurudev Nagar (went for Rs 22.20 lakh/ base price was Rs 14.44 lakh).

However, other 9 sites failed to get any bidder and thus their auction will be re-scheduled, said Naveen Malhotra, the MC official heading the project.

Out of the four sites auctioned, three sites have been won by LRY contractors against whom several complaints of 'overcharging and harassing public' were filed with the MC when they were managing the Feroze Gandhi Market parking lot last year.