Indian Hotels Company gets three more months extension to operate Taj Mansingh hotel as NDMC defers auction

New Delhi: The Tata-owned Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) has got another three-month extension for operating the Taj Mansingh Hotel with NDMC planning to complete the auction of the property by September. The last extension was given on March 25 and the current lease agreement, which expires on June 30, has now been extended till September 30. The matter was placed before the civic body’s council on Friday during a special meeting where 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), which works under the administrative control of the Union Home Ministry, had got a nod to auction the hotel in March. The civic body had earlier set a three-month deadline till June 30 to finish the auction proceedings. To that end, NDMC had asked the Coal Ministry to guide it on the matter of auctions. The process, however, got delayed since the previous chairman Jalaj Srivastava, who was spearheading the auction modalities for 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. PTI