India News | Heritage Buildings Maintained by SDMC to Be Rented out for Bringing in Revenue: Officials

New Delhi, Jul 29 (PTI) The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) will rent out heritage buildings, which are currently being maintained by the civic body, for commercial use such as opening of restaurants, guest houses, banks, and retail shopping centres, officials said.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the SDMC's standing committee on Thursday.

SDMC officials said the move is aimed at bringing more revenue to the cash-strapped civic body.

B K Oberoi, chairman of the SDMC standing committee, said there are over 100 heritage buildings being maintained by the civic body and lakhs of rupees are spent on it.

“We have today approved a proposal to rent out such heritage buildings. The move will boost our revenue and help conserve heritage buildings,” Oberoi said.

He said the civic body will rent out one of its buildings at Mehrauli which is about 100 years old on a pilot basis.

“This building has an area of 5,600 square feet and it will be rented out to a suitable bidder for Rs 3 lakh per month. This will not only give the municipality revenue but also help in conservation of the building,” Oberoi said.

“If this pilot project is successful, we will replicate this in other buildings as well. We also have 16 enemy properties. We are also planning to rent those out if this experiment is successful,” he said.

According to the proposal, applicants will have to pay a minimum reserve price of Rs 1 lakh.

The annual maintenance and restoration cost of the heritage building will be borne by the licensee.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)