NDMC defers Taj Mansingh auction; IHCL gets 3-month extension
13 Jun 2015
The Tata Group company Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) got another three-month extension for operating the Taj Mansingh Hotel in the capital with New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) deciding to complete the auction of the property by September.
Tata had earlier got an extension on 25 March and the current extension will take the current lease agreement from 30 June till 30 September.
The decision was taken at a special meeting of the NDMC after the new chairman Naresh Kumar took oath of office.
The property, owned by NDMC, was given to IHCL on lease for 33 years. The lease ended in 2011 and the company has been given seven temporary extensions since then on various grounds.
New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) works under the administrative control of the union home ministry.
NDMC had received central nod to auction the hotel in March and it had since set a three-month deadline till 30 June to finish the auction proceedings.
The auctioning process, however, got delayed since the previous chairman Jalaj Srivastava, who was overseeing the modalities for the auction of the hotel, was shifted to the union agriculture ministry in April.
Two years ago, when NDMC decided to auction the property, IHCL had approached Delhi high court seeking a stay on the process. However, the company did not get the stay order it had sought.