In a bid to generate revenue, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has announced to give swimming pools to private players as it has been bearing huge loss in operation and upkeep of them.
The Corporation, which runs as many as six swimming pools in its area, has said the move will help in reviving these pools as they are gathering dust and will help in increasing revenue generation also.
The civic body has accepted that it is not able to operate its six swimming pools located in Kutcha Bagh, Shalimar Bagh, Prashant Vihar, Rohini Sector-III, Majlis Park and Keshav Puram owing to poor maintenance/repair and lack of publicity.
In 2014-15, the Corporation incurred an expenditure of Rs 9.57 lakh on cleaning cum repair/maintenance of these pools and spent lakhs of rupees over salary of staff but generated only Rs 13.31 lakh.
Even revenue of two pools was below Rs 50,000. During the last financial year, owing to financial constraints the works of repair and maintenance could not undertaken in any of the pools and the agency decided not to operate them.
“The North MCD has decided to allot day-to-day operation and maintenance to private bodies so they could run it properly. In return, cash-strapped agency will get augmented revenue from them. The allotment will be done on monthly licence fee basis with provision of charge-revision,” said Mohan Bhardwaj, chairman, Standing Committee.
The officials said with decision to allot tenders to private partners, Corporation has fixed Minimum Reserved Monthly licence fee Rs 75,000 while Earnest Money Deposit Security Rs 1 lakh.
With the approval, Corporation also hiked charges for swimming pool services. The agency hiked membership charge from Rs 10 to Rs 20 per person per month. Children of municipal/Government/aided schools will be charged Rs 300 instead of existing Rs 200. Employees will be charged Rs 500 instead of Rs 300 and other will have to pay Rs 800 in place of Rs 500.