Mohali MC to deliberate on handing over industrial area maintenance to SPV

After the civic body authorities failed to maintain industrial area, the Mohali Industries Association now wants to take over the maintenance work through a special purpose vehicle (SPV).

The issue would be deliberated upon at the municipal corporation’s house meeting on Thursday as once the SPV takes over, the taxes collected from the industrial area would be diverted to the SPV so that the same may be used for maintenance, which would mean a loss of revenue for the corporation.

Suffering from official apathy for over three decades, industrial area’s roads are full of potholes, vehicles are parked on both sides owing to inadequate space, choked drains cause waterlogging even after slight showers, and non-functional streetlights have been a cause of worry for commuters.

The industrialists rue that despite having collected ₹12.05 crore as property tax in the last three years from Industrial Area, Mohali, only ₹1.05 crore has been spent on maintenance and infrastructure upgrade.

Mohali Industries Association has more than 600 registered members. As per the proposal, the body’s infrastructure development association would take over the maintenance of industrial areas— Phase 4, 5, 7, 8A, 8B, 9 (old) and 9 (extension) in Mohali.

For this, a corpus will be created from the property tax of ₹4 crore collected annually from the Industrial Area, which can be used for maintenance and upkeep.

If this agenda of SPV is approved by the House, then Mohali would be the second district after Ludhiana where SPV will be maintaining the industrial area. In Ludhiana, SPV was notified in 2014.