Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Parking Fee hike: Will Corpn. lot improve?

By S. Shivakumar

Chennai Sept. 25 . The Chennai Corporation proposes a hike in parking fee from October, but it is faced with the unenviable task of reining in its councillors and lower rung police personnel who are preventing collection of parking charges in shopping areas.

The new fee structure has been approved by the Taxation and Finance Committee and awaits clearance from the council, which is scheduled to meet on September 30. The revised fee will be Rs. 3 for cars and Rs. 2 for two-wheelers for one hour. (The existing fee is Rs. 2 for cars and Re. 1 for two-wheelers.)

Chennai has to manage a vehicle population of over 10 lakhs and much of the carriageway even on important roads is turned into parking lots, almost throughout the day. Yet, officially, the parking collection hardly crosses Rs. 40,000 a day.

The biggest problem faced by the parking attendants engaged by the TN Ex-servicemen Corporation (TEXCO), agency entrusted with collecting the fee, is `refusal to pay'.

Surprisingly, the daily collection in the business nerve centres of T.Nagar and Flower Bazaar totals hardly a couple of thousand rupees. It is the same story in most other areas including Linghi Chetty Street, G.N.Chetty Road and other parts. Enquiries reveal that most shopowners in these areas do not even pay for the monthly parking facility. Enquiries reveal that the average collection per day on Nungambakkam High Road is about Rs. 270, at Valluvar Kottam Rs. 150 and on the Marina is around Rs. 500.

The Corporation gets a monthly income of about Rs. 8 lakhs from parking.

A TEXCO official contends that in the absence of a stiff penalty or specific legal provisions to handle persons who refuse to pay, they are forced to remain silent.

"A businessman who parks three vehicles belonging to his company on a lane off Anna Salai refuses to pay the parking fee. Even on the intervention of a senior Corporation official the problem has not been solved. It is the same problem near most of the hotels."

Though hundreds of vehicles are parked in the bylanes in T.Nagar no parking fee can be collected because of interference by local councillors and the police.

A jewellery shopowner at T.Nagar with "support'' from the local councillor has earmarked his own `parking area'. Another councillor at T.Nagar threatened an attendant in full public view not to collect money from those parking vehicles in the bylanes.

Adding to the problem is the indifferent attitude of the police. Poor lighting makes it difficult to collect parking fees from vehicles parked on Rangan Street and Ramanathan Street at T.Nagar.

Residents of T.Nagar are already up in arms against the conversion of their street space into priced parking, affecting their civic environment.

It is alleged that Omnibus operators pay Rs. 330 a month for each vehicle to the traffic police. This payment is made to allow the omnibuses to be parked on Gandhi Irwin Road and Whannels Road to facilitate picking up and dropping of passengers. About 200 buses operate from Egmore everyday.

Van and lorry associations also create problems by creating their own parking lots.

The owners of vehicles parked in these zones do not pay any fee. The problem is acute near Kannapar Thidal, Salt Cotaurs and Loan Square.

Vehicles are also lined up in front of several clubs and kalyana mandapams. In some roads, the failure of the Corporation to repair road cuts by Metrowater, is affecting parking.

While revenue is the overriding concern for the Chennai Corporation, for the average citizen, it is double jeopardy: no direct benefit from the collection of fees in terms of improved parking infrastructure, and loss of public space which is converted into parking areas by the civic body, tacitly aided by the CMDA, which has done little in over a decade on this issue.

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