Opening of the 1,000-seat auditorium at Civic Centre is stuck in a bureaucratic muddle. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has to procure a licence from its own Health Department before making the auditorium functional.
Sources said the Health Department has sought an affidavit from the Municipal Commissioner, undertaking fulfillment of all norms and conditions for operations. Besides, the corporation also awaits mandatory clearances from Delhi Traffic Police, local police and the Delhi Fire Services.
A senior NMC official said this was a peculiar situation, where one department of the corporation has to seek clearance from another. He, however, said the civic body has applied for licences from various other departments too and is likely to get the clearance within 10 days.
The corporation plans to open the auditorium as soon it gets the no-objection certificate. NMC had, in its annual budget, announced to put the C-wing of the Civic Centre, which houses the auditorium, to commercial use in order to generate revenue.
According to officials, a reputed professional institute has approached NMC for allowing them to use the auditorium, offering `70,000 for a single day along with commitment for a minimum number of days to be booked.
“Instead of booking auditoriums for a day or two by corporation directly, NMC will prefer outsourcing the booking process of auditoriums to interested parties by fixing minimum rent for a year,” the official added.
The corporation also mulling options to call for a single or multiple RFP document for letting out the C-block. Several officers are suggesting that corporation will call single RFP for auditoriums and food courts similar to the line of India Habitat Centre (IHC), where it is done by a single party, he said. It is noteworthy that the North Delhi civic body also plans to open restaurants and foot outlets in the C wing.