The Hindu : New Delhi News : DDA members demand rates specification for all parking lots

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 14, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

DDA members demand rates specification for all parking lots

Staff Reporter

`Exorbitant rates at Nehru Place parking lot have made a mockery of the system'

NEW DELHI: With the parking fee at a new multi-level parking lot that has come up at Nehru Place in South Delhi having been pegged at Rs. 30 for the first hour and Rs. 120 for eight hours, members of Delhi Development Authority have demanded that in all future auctions of parking lots and multi-level parking facilities the Authority specify the rates.

"These rates have made a mockery of the system. They are exorbitant and take parking out of the purview of the common man. While a Mercedes owner may well be able to afford parking in this lot made by the Eros Group, for a second-hand Maruti car owner it would burn a hole in the pocket," said DDA member and Councillor Virender Kasana.

Stating that in the seven-storey complex meant for about 1,500 passenger car units the intermediate charges are Rs 50 for two hours and Rs 80 for four hours, the members said such high rates are not even being charged at the airport where for eight hours the charge is Rs 100. As for the Delhi Metro, New Delhi Municipal Council and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, he said they have been charging almost a fourth of the amount and that too is only allowed to them after discussions in their respective boards or price fixation committees.

But in this case, he lamented DDA while carrying out the auctioning of the plot had not incorporated the clause of rate fixation and left it entirely to the builder to decide the tariff. "The plot was sold for Rs. 42 crores and over that the building was constructed. Now the builder wants to recover the cost. As such our demand is that while a folly has been committed in this case, it should not be repeated in future ventures."

The member has now written to the Lieutenant Governor and also Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken seeking their intervention in the matter. "Now that the process of auctioning of two new multi-level parkings at Nehru Place and Mangalam Place in Rohini is underway, it is essential that the directions are issued forthwith. It should be specified by DDA that it would decide the rates and this would help in getting the appropriate price for the plots in the auction."

DDA has undertaken these two new projects as the personalised motor vehicles in Delhi had increased from 171 per 1000 vehicles in 1991 to 228/1000 in 2001. With 27 per cent of these being cars and jeeps and 64 per cent being two wheelers, the need for increasing parking has gone up. In both these nine-storey parking sites, 30 per cent of the built up area would be allowed for commercial use to make them more financially viable for the builders.

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