A paid parking lot in Chandigarh. Express
In order to curb the menace of haphazard parking at paid parking lots across the city, the Municipal Corporation is going to impose even higher penalty on the parking contractor for not being able to provide hassle-free parking to commuters. The MC’s agenda for the Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) scheduled for Tuesday mentions this as one of the main items.
The final penalty as proposed by the MC, if approved on Tuesday, would be at least six times the parking rate of the vehicle that the contractor charges per vehicle. MC teams shall be conducting regular checking to find out the haphazard parking. F&CC would also take a call on whether the parking rates needed a further hike from April 1.
Although the penalty for poorly maintained parking lots was already being imposed by the MC on the parking contractor, now since the hourly parking rates have been implemented, the final penalty calculated by the MC and proposed to be imposed on the contractor shall be much higher now since the hourly parking rates have bene implemented. The agenda documents, accessed by Chandigarh Newsline, revealed that even the firm, managing paid parking lots in Chandigarh, has given its consent for paying the penalty, if they fail to manage the parking lots properly.
For instance, according to the existing norms, if one four-wheeler is found wrongly parked, the penalty imposed on the contractor is Rs 50 (number of vehicles wrongly parked multiplied by parking rate – Rs 5 as per existing rates – multiplied by 10). However, since the hourly parking rates have been introduced in the city, MC has proposed a new penalty quotient. According to the new proposal, the penalty shall be calculated as Rs 30 per four-wheeler multiplied by the number of vehicles wrongly parked further multiplied by 10. In case of one wrongly parked four-wheeler, the penalty shall become Rs 300.
“Since the parking rates have increased, penalty on the contractor also needs to be increased so that he provides better facilities. Initially, the hourly rates were not there and we used to consider a flat rate of Rs 2 and Rs 5 in case of a two-wheeler and four-wheeler, respectively, for calculating the penalty on the contractor. But now, since hourly rates have been introduced, we have taken the average and we would consider Rs 15 and Rs 30 in case of two and four-wheelers, respectively,” Tejdeep Singh Saini, Joint Commissioner, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, told Chandigarh Newsline.
Mayor Davesh Moudgil has been pushing for the fact that the firm managing the parking lots, Arya Toll Infra Limited, is yet to pay its dues to the MC that have been pending since long. The mayor is of the view that unless the parking contractor clears his dues, the rates should not be hiked further. This shall also be discussed at the F&CC meeting and if the hike in parking rates is approved, a two-wheeler shall be charged Rs 10 (for first four hours) and a four-wheeler owner will have to pay Rs 20 (for the first four hours). Expressing concern, the parking contractor, too, has demanded that street vendors, who have encroached upon the parking lots at Sector 22 (near Kiran theatre and Shastri Market) need to be removedfrom there. This will also be discussed at the F&CC meeting on Tuesday.