Standing panel nod to reduced parking rent from Fule Market

Nagpur: The standing committee of Nagpur Municipal Corporation on Friday gave its nod to market department’s proposal to slash rent of pay and park scheme at Mahatma Fule Market. The committee has also settled the old dispute of reducing the rent of pay and park and justified the demand of operator as shifting of wholesale vegetable market from Mahatma Fule to Kalamna had reduced traffic there.
Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) market department has submitted a proposal to recover over Rs1.3 crore from pay and park operator in Mahatma Fule Market and settled the disputes. On February 5, 2008, the NMC had selected one Prakash Anchalwar for running the pay and park facility on a condition that the operator would pay Rs21,000 per day to the civic body. Anchalwar paid the rent till July 2013. However, on August 24, 2013, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) shifted the wholesale market to Kalamna market yard and it meant a big drop in number of vegetable laden trucks coming to Fule market.
On October 20, 2010, the civic body began the process to invite fresh tender, which was stayed by the then minister of state for urban development Bhaskar Jadhav. Thus, Anchalwar continued to operate the pay and park facility.
On August 27, 2013, Anchalwar wrote to the civic body expressing his inability to pay Rs21,000 per day and requested to either terminate his contract or reduce the rent to Rs6,000. The NMC market department then carried out an inspection and submitted a report stating the number of vehicles had indeed come down. It also recommended reducing the rent to Rs7,250 per day. Taking this into consideration, the NMC had invited e-tender on February 5, 2014, to run the pay and park scheme there, but no bidder came forward.
Anchalwar insisted on paying only Rs6,000 per day rent which the market department refused to accept. As a result, from August 2013, the civic body had not recovered the rent from Anchalwar. Later, the market department sought opinion from the NMC’s accounts department, which calculated the dues to the tune of Rs1.09 crore for August 2013-March 2015 period. Expressing his inability to pay as calculated by the accounts department, Anchalwar offered to pay Rs31.26 lakh to settle the dispute. Meanwhile, the market department also decided to revise the rent and proposed to charge Rs6,500 per day.
Justifying the decision, standing committee chairman Ramesh Shingare said the operator had informed NMC about the poor recovery. Even NMC’s market department’s survey had revealed a reduced number of vehicles in the market. Now the civic body would recover Rs6,500 per day from the operator from August 24, 2013 to January 2016. As per the panel’s directives the dues were calcuated at Rs 43.94 lakh of which Anchalwar had already deposited Rs 22.52 lakh, said Shingare. Besides, the standing panel has also asked officials to invite a short-tender notice for the pay and park facility.
Elevent other proposals including purchase of ‘tar’ worth Rs3.26 crore from BPCL and HPCL, tarring of road from Sardar Patel Square to Jat Tarodi to Medical Square and development of a garden in Rajendra Nagar were also okayed by the committee.