Cuttack: At a time when 11 proposed kalyan mandaps are hanging fire, the civic body has come up with a plan to build 20 more such facilities to meet the rising demand for affordable venues for social functions in the city.

At present, the city - with over six lakh population - has 60-odd private kalyan mandaps, while the Cuttack Municipal Corporation runs just two of such facilities on a single premises.

Municipal commissioner Bikash Ranjan Mohapatra on Monday said: "The process of identifying locations for the new kalyan mandaps will start shortly, along with preparation of the project cost."

However, the plan and other initiatives regarding this project have failed to evoke any positive response from the residents. Telenga Bazar resident Pradeep Sahoo said: "The corporation has been planning kalyan mandaps for over three years now. But not a single such facility has come up yet."

On this, Mohapatra conceded that the projects could not be taken up as the their locations were on government lands belonging to various departments. He said: "Now, we have decided to identify locations on lands that belong to the corporation in various parts of the city," Mohapatra said.

By and large, the city residents feel that government kalyan mandaps are need of the hour, at least from the point of view of rent. Bidanasi resident Satyajit Roy said: "There is an urgent need for reasonably priced venues for social functions in Cuttack. Kalyan mandaps by the municipal corporation will address the need."#The civic body charges around Rs 10,000, including the 10 per cent service tax on reservation charge and 3 per cent education cess on service tax, for each of its two kalyan mandaps at Choudhury Bazar. The rents in private mandaps, on the other hand, start from Rs 25,000 and go up to Rs 1 lakh.

The civic body had first planned to build seven kalyan mandaps in 2015-16 at Biju Patnaik Chhak, Potapokhari, Nuapada, Jagatpur, Kuda Sahi, Nuapatna and Sector-7 at Markatnagar. Four others were planned at Jobra, Bidhyadharpur and Sector 9 and 11 at Markatnagar in 2017-18.

More venues for marriages and social functions have become a necessity as the civic body had granted licences to less than 70 of the 187 of the kalyan mandaps that were operating in the city. The large number of kalyan mandaps was found ineligible for grant of licence under a new rule.