No takers, officials slash rentals for stalls in Vadodara night market

After getting lukewarm response from buyers during its first attempt to auction stalls in the night market with relatively high deposit amounts and rentals, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) on Friday decided to slash the twin amounts by around 75 per cent and also relaxed norms for allocation of shops.

The standing committee of VMC approved a proposal seeking to pull down offset value, the amount from where auction will begin and also the lowest annual rent, and deposit from Rs 8 lakh each to Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh respectively for bigger stalls. Similarly, it okayed a provision seeking to cut offset value and deposit amount of Rs 4 lakh each to Rs 1 lakh each respectively for smaller stalls.

There are 12 bigger stalls measuring 4 metre x 4 metre each and 30 stalls of 2 metre x 2 metre each.

The VMC had invited application from local, national and international food franchises to take part in auction of the stalls in late July. Though more than 40 forms were sold, the civic body received only a couple dully filled forms back within given period. Eventually, the administration was forced to cancel the whole auction process.

"We feel, the buyers thought the offset value and deposit amount to be too high. They are also apprehensive that since the shops could be kept open at night, there might not be much business initially. Taking into account all these factors, we have reduced deposit and offset value," Suresh Tuvar, land and assets official (commercial) of VMC, said on Saturday. Tuver is overseeing the auctioning process of stalls.

VMC gets Rs 3.33 lakh in rent from an Amul parlour in Sayaji Garden and the civic body had treated this rate as base price to arrive at offset value and deposit for stalls in the night market that has come up near VUDA circle in Karelibaug area.

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