City to get a new five-star hotel

CHANDIGARH: The Municipal Corporation (MC) will dispose of a prime land on Dakshin Marg in Sector 35B, that was caught in controversies for nearly seven years, to give the city a new five-star hotel.
A reserve price of Rs 48 crore has been fixed for a piece of land. MC sources told TNN that this was the second time the 2.62-acre prime land at the Piccadily Chowk on Chandigarh-Ambala-Delhi National Highway will be auctioned.The land will come under the hammer on November 3.
Bitten once after the successful bidder in 1997 walked out of the project due to differences of opinion with the authorities, the civic body seems careful this time to get the rough edges of the previous deal smoothened out.
Of the 2.62 acres, the city planners have fixed permissible ground coverage of 35 per cent of the total area. The building could go up to 18.53 metres in height, sources said. Twin-level basement parking was also being allowed at the hotel site, they added.
The site was auctioned first in 1997 when BJP''s Kamla Sharma was the Mayor. The successful bidder, GSR Hotels Limited, paid Rs 36 crore for the site.
The company paid the first installment of Rs nine crore to the MC and sought a change in the building plan, which was disallowed by the administration.
The land was still under the administration''s control and the process of transferring it to the MC was getting delayed.
This led to the bidder losing interest in the project. The company sought a refund of the paid installment. When that did not come through, the company went to the court.
The Supreme Court ruled in favour of the bidder and the MC refunded Rs nine crore along with Rs six crore interest in 2002, when Congress'' Subash Chawla was the Mayor, sources said.
Now, the MC cleared the confusions of the previous deal by getting full control of the land. Probably for the first time, the administration also allowed a change in the original building plan to accommodate a five-star hotel, sources claimed.