Road signboards’ maiden online auction to push up civic revenue

PUNE: The road signage and direction boards would be a source of income for the Pune Municipal Corporation with the civic administration deciding to rent them out for advertising.

An e-auction was conducted to select the advertising agency, leading to significant increase in bid amounts. The corporation hopes to generate Rs3.92 crore in a year from this initiative.

According to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC)'s data, as many as 61 spaces will be available on 31 gantries. Six spaces are available on three hoardings.

"These public spaces were up for grabs for the past three years. But they did not get adequate response. The e-auction was conducted to get more demand from the bidders. It has proven successful," said Vilas Kanade, the head of PMC's sky sign department.

He said apart from the city, bidders from other parts of the state responded. The civic administration will get around 23% more revenue from the gantries than its bid price because of the high competition. The income from hoardings would go up by 81% as against the basic bid amount.

According to the PMC data, the revenue was just around 5% more than the base bid price in the past three years. The bids were carried out via traditional tendering system.

"The bidder will have to pay two months' rent within four days of getting the contract. Another sixth months' rent has to be paid within 15 days," stated the proposal.

The PMC officials claimed that the civic body had been taking steps to generate revenue from the municipal properties and street furniture. It has decided to lease out over 20,000 streetlight poles in various parts of the city for advertising. The move will enable the civic body generate nearly Rs8 crore as revenue.