A hoarding in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, July 19: Cuttack Municipal Corporation is all set to make a quantum increase in annual earnings from licence fee for the advertisement rights for erection of any hoarding, frame and glow signs in the city after inviting bidders through a tender setting Rs 1 crore as upset price.

As per the preliminary scrutiny of the bids a two-fold increase in the earnings is now on the cards.

“Of the four responses taken up for examination, the highest bidder has offered Rs 1.71 crore. The tender process will be finalised soon after further scrutiny of the licence committee tomorrow and subsequent approval of the municipal council,” mayor Saumendra Ghosh told The Telegraph today.

The civic body’s annual earnings from licence fee from the hoardings have been Rs 75 lakh to Rs 80 lakh. Illegal hoardings and unauthorised billboards were mushrooming and the number had steadily increased in recent years. But, the CMC failed to collect the licence fee from many of them.

“The substantial increase has now been possible after pulling down all billboards and hoardings after the licences issued earlier for them expired on March 31 vis-a-vis inviting fresh tender with the upset price fixed at Rs 1 crore,” the mayor said.

The pulling down operation in May had reportedly revealed around 70,000sqft of hoardings and billboards within the municipal limits. While many of them had no sanction, several did not even carry the name of the agency.

Official sources said, in March 2008, the civic body called tenders fixing an upset price of Rs 75 lakh.

Though the tender had been finalised, it was challenged in the high court by one of the bidders. Acting on it, the court had issued an interim injunction on bid finalisation. The stay order continued till disposal of the case after over two-and-a-half years.

In 2002, the corporation entered into a three-year agreement with a private company. The company, while enjoying the sole rights of putting up hoardings, was expected to pay Rs 27 lakh in the first year, Rs 29 lakh in second year and Rs 32.67 lakh in the third year.

“However, under the new policy, there would be significant increase in annual earnings. The successful bidder will be given the advertisement rights for erection of any hoarding, frame and glow sign within the corporation area by way of granting licence for a period of three years from August 2011 to July 2014. But, the licence fee for succeeding years will be fixed at 10 per cent more than the licence fee of previous year,” corporation’s secretary Ashutosh Samal said.

“Moreover, the successful bidder will have to submit details of list of the hoarding boards, kiosks and glow signs used for advertisement with their locations within one month,” Samal said. “With this, the illegal hoardings are expected to be checked substantially,” he said.

The municipal corporation has kept the mid-verge and footpath of Ring Road (except Sati Chaura to Bidanasi Gada), mid-verge from Badambadi to Madhupatna and traffic posts in the corporation area out of the purview of the bidding.

For the bus shelters and the public toilets, the corporation had entered into separate agreements under the Build-Operate-Transfer projects with private parties.

The area in front of Ravenshaw University, Bajrakabati, Chandi Chhak and areas adjacent to the judicial establishments have been declared as “hoarding-free zones”.