Darbhanga, March 26: More than two years after completion, the shutters of the 28 shops on the premises of the administrators’ residential building in front of CM Science College could go up following an open bidding.

Darbhanga Municipal Corporation (DMC) had constructed the shops at a cost of Rs 11.5 lakh. Since the completion of the construction work in December 2009, the shops have remained closed. They have not been allotted to anybody.

DMC commissioner Kumar Binod Narain Singh said: “The councillors have different opinions on how the shops should be allotted but none of them have any concrete solution to the problem. The issue of allotment of the shops should be decided at the councillor-level and not at the administrative-level.”

He added: “Following the deadlock over the allotment of the shops and considering the revenue loss incurred by the government so far, we have advised the councillors to allot the shops through open bidding so that there is transparency in the process. Most of the councillors have verbally agreed to it but we need written consent so that the file could be processed. We are expecting that the bidding process should start within a week.”

Gauri Paswan, the mayor of the town, said: “We expect the bidding process to start this week. Many encroachers run their shops illegally on the premises but no action has been taken so far.”

There are 48 councillors and only 28 shops for allottment. More than 12 shopkeepers, who had filed their application that they had shops on the premises earlier, are demanding that the new shops should be allotted to them. Under such a circumstance, renting out the new shops would remain pending, said a source.

All efforts of the DMC officers in the past two years to rent them out proved futile because of diverse opinions of councillors.

The source added that the DMC had last year sold forms for Rs 500 so that the shops could be rented out. But it was stopped within 10 days considering the poor rent fixed at that time. While DMC had decided to take Rs 45,000 as security money from those who would be allotted the shops, the rent was fixed at Rs 7 per sqft.