Food courts, banks to come up at Civic Centre

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has finalised a plan to commercially exploit the unused portions of it’s headquarter – the iconic Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre.

If the project goes according to plans, the unused C-block of the civic centre will soon house food joints, banks, ATMs and two auditoriums for holding conferences and seminars.

Corporation’s senior officers said final touches were being given to the blueprint.

According to initial plan, national and international food chains like Haldiram, Kaleva, Bikanerwala, KFC, McDonalds will be allowed to open food court on the two floors of the C-block.

A floor will be reserved to open a bank and top two floors auditoriums will be booked for conferences and functions.

An officer said the plan has almost been finalised and Request for Proposal (RFP) document will be published next week after a competent authority approves it.

“Certain minor things like which floors will house what kind of commercial activity has to be finalised,” the officer said.

Corporation sources said reputed professional institutes have already approached it seeking permission to use the auditoriums.

However, instead of booking auditoriums for a day or two by the corporation directly, they intend to fix annual rent and outsource it to interested parties, the officers said.

The officer also said the proposal will be placed before the standing committee after finalising the lease period for five or 10 years and the minimum rent.

“Once the committee approves the project, an in-anticipation approval will be taken by the Mayor to start the bidding process at the earliest,” the officer said.

The NDMC is also mulling options to call for a single or multiple RPF document to lease the property.

“It might happen that the corporation will call single RFP for auditoriums and food courts on the lines of India Habitat Centre, where it is done by a single party,” an official said.