The Hindu : New Delhi News : MCD to rationalise parking rates

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 03, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

MCD to rationalise parking rates

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, JULY 2. Making significant changes in its existing policy, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to `rationalise' its parking rates by introducing hourly system and doing away with manual issuance of parking chits by introducing simputers, hand-held mini computer, for its parking lots.

Doing away with its existing slots of four and eight hours, motorists would be now charged for each hour of vehicle parked. The present rate would be equally divided into hours and vehicle owners would be required to pay only for "the duration" of their vehicle parked and not for the entire period. The policy would be tabled before the Standing Committee and MCD House in their next meeting later this month for formal approval.

And to ensure that the notorious parking contractors do not continue to take the vehicle owners for a ride, the new parking policy has made it "compulsory" for those manning the parking sites to issue both the acknowledgement receipt and parking charge receipt printed only through the simputers, having special software provided by the MCD that can not be doctored.

At a meeting held with his Zonal Deputy Commissioner recently to finalise the parking policy, the Municipal Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, directed them to provide him a list of all the unauthorised parking lots across the Capital by this week. Consequently, a survey is being carried out at the zonal level to identify all unauthorised parking sites being run by unscrupulous elements. Mr. Mehta said all these sites would be regularised and given to contractors through auction. At present, the MCD officially has less than 70 parking sites, while the number of unauthorised ones is estimated to be in several hundreds, as a result the revenue loss is in crores. As of now, the civic body earns about Rs. 13 crores per annum through parking sites.

Asserting that revenue generation from parking was not a priority; Mr. Mehta asserted that the new policy was aimed at making its parking lots friendly to vehicle owners. Mr. Mehta said vehicle owners would be issued printed receipts having all the relevant information on it including the time of entry and exit, name of contractors, license number and a telephone number on which a complaint could be registered.

The Commissioner said the MCD has developed signages for the parking lots that would be strictly adhered to by the contractors. Besides, space for commercial advertisements, it would contain all relevant details about the contractor and the parking lot. "Contract from now onwards would be for three years and not for one year," he said.

In another significant change, each parking lot would have a fixed space for the number of vehicles, which would be determined by making distinct yellow paint numbering would be done for each one of them. "The receipt to be given to the vehicle owners would contain the specific space number of the parking lot," he said.

Referring to the large number of litigations being faced by the MCD due to loopholes in its existing parking system, Mr. Mehta said all these would be eliminated as contractors would be required to deposit in advance all its post dated cheques, at the time of signing its contract. The entire system, he said, would take about six months time to implement all over the Capital.

"We want a system where vehicle owners do not undergo a nightmarish experience while parking their vehicle," he said.

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