Municipal Corporation Ludhiana to generate revenue from Unipoles; To install 80 unipoles on trial basis

Ludhiana, July 11, 2016: Putting an end to the advertisement logjam the Municipal Corporation Ludhiana is likely to generate revenue from the hoardings which had stopped around three years ago. This time instead of waiting for any bidder the department is going to install its own hoardings which would be allocated to the advertisers through open auction. The officials hoped that unipoles would become good sources of revenue for the corporation.
On trial basis they would installed as many as 80 unipoles and if became successful then more unipoles would also be installed at various locations. The officials have finalized the agency that would install the unipoles and now it has gone for the approval from the Finance and Contracts Committee (F&CC) followed by which the work to install them.
However earlier the successful bidder used to install the unipoles but now MCL would get the unipoles installed at its own expenditure which would become its property. The unipoles would be installed at Old GT Road (Jagraon Bridge to Dholewal Chowk), Chandigarh Road (Samrala Chowk to Octroi Post), Main Gole Market Jamalpur Colony, Gill Road (Vishvkarma Chowk to Octroi Post), Daba Road (Dholewal Chowk to Sherpur Chowk), Hambran Road, Ferozepur Road, Model Town Road, Rotary Club Road, Malhar Road, Durga Mata Mandir Road, Mall Road, Dugri Road, Rani Jhansi Road, BRS Nagar Road, Canal Road, Udham Singh Nagar Market, Cemetery Road, Club Road, Link Road and Feroze Gandhi Market.
For the first five months the state government is ready to take the unipoles for advertisement and in turn the MCL would get Rs 1.25 crores for five months’ duration. Also the government would bear the electricity expenses and would also pay the advertisement tax. According to the officials if they would allot the unipoles for one year’ time to private players they can earn more than Rs 3 crores from the advertisement only. The city has the capacity of around 400 unipoles at important locations.
In the first phase, the corporation is getting unipoles installed at 80 locations as we are expecting good income generation. Once the corporation finds good results it would install unipoles at other locations as well and open auction would be organised for more revenue generation.
It may be mentioned here that advertisement hoardings used to be a good source of income generation for the department but once the bid was rejected due to less price and second time bidders did not participate due to high reserve price.