Garima Singh Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), part of the Tata Group, has won an e-auction by New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which lets it retain control of the iconic Taj Mansingh hotel in Delhi.

IHCL beat ITC — the only other bidder — in the e-auction whose results were declared on Friday, by submitting the highest bid offer of 32.5 per cent of the gross turnover (GTO). The first bid came in at 24 per cent of GTO.

IHCL, which has been running the 292-room hotel since 1978, was keen to retain the property after the lease expired in 2011.

Since 2011, IHCL has got as many as nine extensions to run the property. It was also engaged in a legal battle with NDMC for six years. A Supreme Court ruling last year paved the way for the e-auction.

The company will now pay a licence fee of ₹7.03 crore per month (including GST) to NDMC to run Taj Mansingh on a 33-year lease. This is nearly double the ₹3.94 crore it was paying earlier, which included GST at 17.25 per cent.

Puneet Chhatwal, MD and CEO of IHCL, said: “We are delighted that the iconic Taj Mahal, New Delhi, will continue to remain a part of the IHCL family. We look forward to investing in the hotel and taking it to new heights of Indian hospitality.”

“NDMC will issue notice about the successful bidder and the council will give the letter of award to IHCL,” said Tanveer Ahmed, Deputy Director (Estate), NDMC.

Third attempt

Today’s auction marked NDMC’s third attempt to find a hotel company to run the property. It had to call off an auction in June after failing to draw more than two bidders. In the earlier round, too, IHCL and ITC were the only two bidders.

This forced the municipal body to relax the norms. It reduced the minimum number of bidders from three to two and the minimum turnover eligibility from ₹400 crore to ₹350 crore.

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