AS many as 13 out of the 31 shops situated at the ground floor of newly constructed Park and Ride Palza at Liberty Market were sold through open auction by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) here Wednesday.

LDA officials said the auction was done on the directives of the Punjab chief minister. They said reserve price for these shops had been set as Rs 185,300,000 whereas these were sold at Rs 211,450,000.

A total of 62 bidders who had deposited pay orders worth Rs 1 million each for participating in the bid took part in the auction and serious competition was observed on this occasion, LDA officials added.

For ensuring transparency in the whole proceeding, journalists had also been invited to witness the proceedings which was live telecast by the electronic media as well. Bidding started at 100am and continued till 5pm. Members of the auction committee of the LDA, including acting Director General Hhafiz Ihsan Ul Haq, Additional Director General (Housing) Mansoor Qadir, Chief Town Planner Waseem Ahmad Khan, TEPA Chief Engineer Said Ur Rahaman, Director Finance Zaheer Asghar Raana, Director Estate Management Ishtiaq Chaudhary, Director Land Development Tariq Masood, supervised the auction proceedings.