Indian residents planning to buy plots in Bihar will be able to do so with a mouse click.

The urban development and housing department will sell off a large number of its commercial-cum-residential properties (land) across the state through e-auction within a month. Indian residents would be able to participate in the online bid from anywhere in the world.

A total of 102 properties to be auctioned by the Bihar State Housing Board (BSHB) with support from Bank of India, are lying unused for the past few decades. The present circle rates of respective areas would be the base price in the auction and the property will be sold to the highest bidder on lease for 66 years.

A meeting to deliberate on the procedure to be adopted for the proposed auction of BSHB properties was held in Patna on Wednesday under the chairmanship of urban development and housing minister Maheshwar Hazari. Officials present in the meeting included Chaitanya Prasad, principal secretary, urban development and housing department, Amrendra Prasad Singh, managing director, BSHB, and senior executives from the Bank of India.

"We want to hold the auction in a fully transparent manner. That is why we roped in Bank of India as an independent third party to conduct the auction. The commercial-cum-residential plots to be auctioned are located in Patna, Ara, Purnea, Katihar and Bhagalpur among other places," said Hazari.

"The auction module has been prepared by experts and it has been vetted by high-level authorities, including the Advocate General of Patna High Court, and senior officials in the state finance department," said an urban development official.

Hazari said information regarding various stages of the auction from its launch till its conclusion will be made public through advertisement in newspapers. "We will carry out massive promotions of this auction through newspapers and other media. A link for auction will be put up on the website of the housing board. People interested in the auction will be required to register themselves first upon payment of participation fee or earnest money," said Hazari.

Officials said the highest bidder will be required to pay the base price, that is the existing circle rate, within 72 hours of conclusion of bidding. The remaining amount would be required to be paid within a month.

Though the housing board has expedited the proposal of auctioning its vacant land, other ambitious projects, including construction of multi-storied apartments in Lohia Nagar and Bahadurpur in Patna and similar projects in Gaya and Ara are gathering dust for the past couple of years.

The BSHB conceptualised an ambitious project of development of 10,000 flats across the state back in 2012.

Though the scheme got necessary approval at different stages, it has not materialised till date. Apart from Patna, other pending projects of BSHB for redevelopment of its residential colonies include those at Gaya (Anugrahapuri), Purnea (Indira Nagar), Bhagalpur (Barari), Darbhanga (Laheriasarai), Sasaram, Chapra (Prabhunath Nagar and Saranha), Ara (Dalpatpur).

The architectural designs for the redevelopment of BSHB colonies at Patna and Gaya were prepared by renowned architect Hafeez Contractor.