The Salt Lake civic body will start sending letters to lease holders of the shops in block markets that have not been opened for years, a senior official at the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
Salt Lake has 16 markets that are recognised by the BMC. The civic body collects rents from the shopkeepers in these markets.
Residents of 52 blocks in three sectors of the township depend on these markets for their daily needs.
Rajesh Chirimar, the mayoral council member in charge of markets in the BMC, said several markets have shops that have not been opened for years.
“There are a few shops in most of the markets that have not been opened for a long time. And in a few markets, such as the ones in the FD, IB and FB blocks, the majority of the shops are shut. These shops were leased out years ago,” said Chirimar.
The market department of the BMC is in charge of maintenance of the markets and collecting rent from the lessees.
According to Chirimar, his department will start sending letters to the lease holders of the closed shops requesting them to open their stores.
The civic body will also give them an option to surrender their lease rights so the shops could be alloted to those who are willing to run them.
“A survey to identify such shops is on. Once we get the report, we will start sending the letters,” Chirimar said.
“Over the past few years, a lot of shops have changed hands. We are allowing that provided that the person who is willing to take a shop on lease pays Rs 500 per sq ft as a one-time payment and both the old and new lease holders appear before civic
officials with their documents,” said Chirimar.
According to a report of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, the civic body has earned a revenue of Rs 1.5 crore from the block markets in Salt Lake from December last year till March 9.
This newspaper reported last week about the dilapidated condition of markets across the township.
A senior civic official said the money earned from the block markets are spent on their repairs.
“We are trying to increase the revenue collection from the block markets and
also help them compete with online service providers,” a senior official at the BMC said.