VMC auctions stalls at Rs 2.5-cr night market, collects Rs 50 lakh

Despite deflating base-value of shops for rent, the Night Market of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has again got a cold shoulder from hoteliers and those in the food and beverages business.

In all, the civic body could collect Rs 50 lakh from auction of the shops on Wednesday. But is has spent Rs 2.5 crore in developing the market on Rs 42 crore land near VUDA circle in Karelibaug.

After getting only one application to take part in it, VMC was forced to abort its first attempt to auction the 42 shops of the market in August last year. After analysis, the civic officials found that the "no interest" by the industry was due to high deposit amounts and higher off-set value, the price at which the bid for a given stall was to start.

Initially, VMC had fixed Rs 8 lakh as off-set value and equal amount as deposit for the bigger 12 shops. For the smaller 30 shops, the amount were Rs 4 lakh each respectively. With a view to attract more bidders, the civi body slashed off-set value and deposit amount by 75 per cent to Rs 2 lakh each for big shops and Rs 1 lakh each for small shops in September.

Despite the revised rates, which are well below market rates, VMC got only 35 applications to participate in the auction and out of them only 32 actually turned up on Wednesday. While the highest bid for big shop was Rs 3.11 lakh, it was Rs 1.15 lakh for small shop.

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