250 showrooms at a prime location in Gurgaon have become white elephants for its owners…! Sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. The situation is a sore point for garment exporters who have taken space at the Apparel House on lease from the AEPC. Recently some showroom holders received legal notice from AEPC for payment of dues supposedly for maintenance. Apparel Online too has a copy of the same in which AEPC says, “As agreed & contracted you are required to pay a sum of Rs. 15/- per sq. ft. super area as maintenance charges for these showrooms, as AEPC provides day-to-day facility like lift, security, parking, and air- condition in these showrooms. If any showroom holder does not pay the due, AEPC will charge it from security amount of Rs 2 lakh.”
Exporters are confused because there is no activity in these showrooms throughout the year, as promised to them and they don’t want to surrender the showrooms as these are within the headquarters of AEPC.
“Best situation is that there should be some export promotional activates from time to time as per the initial intent of creating these showrooms, we will happily pay all amount in that case,” said an exporter who has two showrooms in the premises. AEPC has demanded an amount of Rs. 60,936 within 15 days from him as dues.
