Decision on Taj Mansingh lease pushed to Wednesday

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will decide on a lease extension to be awarded to the Taj Mansingh hotel in New Delhi in a meeting on Wednesday. The meeting on Friday did not take a call on the extension before the property is auctioned.

It received the go-ahead from Union ministry of home affairs, its parent organisation, to conduct an open auction without affording the first right of refusal to anyone.

Taj Mansingh's current lease is due to expire on March 31. Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), which operates the property, had filed a plea in the Delhi high court to get a stay on the proposed auction, claiming equity in the hotel property's construction.

While the land and property belong to the NDMC, IHCL had signed a 33-year lease agreement for managing the property. That lease expired in October 2011, after which auctioning of the property was due. However, there have been six lease extensions since, the most recent one awarded on January 31, that would last till March 31.