Delhi's Connaught Place to remain dirty, outsourcing clean-up work to French firm put off

Your wait to see a spick and span Connaught Place (CP) just got longer. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has once again put off its plan to outsource the cleaning and maintenance of the Capital's shopping hub to a private firm.

French firm JCDecaux Group was billed to be finally awarded the contract in the NDMC's monthly council meeting on Friday. However, the same was deferred-a full two years after the idea was first finalised-following some members raising objections.

The outsourcing plan was envisaged way back in September 2013 by then NDMC chairman Jalaj Shrivastava. After a visit to Paris, he decided that Connaught Place would be developed as the Champs-Elysees of Delhi. Similar maintenance work would require 24x7 monitoring, which the NDMC officials decided would be best done by a private firm.

The redevelopment of Connaught Place, which took five long years and Rs 671 crore, had also turned into a flop show as paan stains and trash in the shopping arcade returned immediately after. The NDMC's sanitation department has repeatedly faced flak for this and expressed its inability to tackle the menace.

On Friday, New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi-also a member of the council-refused to grant the award on account of advertising rights to the concessionaire. The agreement with JCDecaux allows it to earn revenue from putting up advertisements on toilets and street furniture. Twenty per cent of it, in fact, would be shared with the NDMC as per the contract. Another objection raised by Lekhi was the duration of the contract - 15 years.

An NDMC official, however, expressed concern over the delay, saying: "The plan has already been hanging fire for two years. We are spending Rs 60 lakh per month on CP's maintenance but it still looks dirty. The private firm promised mechanised cleaning with automatic floor scrubbers and water jets, street furniture and digital panels - all at its own investment of Rs 28 crore. This would have given CP a worldclass look with zero cost to the council and additional income generation from the ads."

Meanwhile, CP traders, who have been most eagerly waiting for the plan to fructify, are disappointed. Atul Bhargav, president of the New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA), told Mail Today: "The CP Redevelopment Plan, after missing its Commonwealth Games deadline in 2010, and being completed at such a huge cost, looks all the same now. There is not one pillar that does not carry stains. There are beggars, stray dogs and filth at every corner."

NDTA secretary Vikram Badhwar said: "The problem of hawkers has grown by leaps and bounds. The corridors which are meant to be for shoppers on foot are fully occupied by illegal redhiwalas."

David Sorao, a tourist from Prague visiting CP said, "I have heard the shopping complex was built by the British and it's an architectural beauty and a heritage structure. It definitely deserves to be better maintained."