MC to manage paid parking lots, rates to be down by Wednesday

CHANDIGARH: The municipal corporation (MC) on Monday cancelled the paid parking contract with private company Arya Toll Infra Limited, taking over all the 25 paid parking lots and multi-level parking in Sector17.

The MC will run the parking lots by employing its own employees. Charges will remain the same till the Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) takes the decision to reduce them during its meeting on Tuesday.

Joint municipal commissioner Tejdeep Singh Saini said, “The MC has taken over physical possession of 25 parking sites and one multilevel parking and handed them over to area sub-divisional engineers. Parking rates will remain same till further orders.”

Sources said since the revision of charges falls under the domain of either the F&CC or the general house, the matter will be brought before the F&CC. On Monday, different teams of the MC’s engineering wing visited all 25 paid parking lots to take details of the items the company had installed. An inventory of all such items will be prepared to keep a record and to deal with financial issues.

Saini said the contractor had failed to deposit the fifth instalment of licence fee amounting to Rs 3.69 crore. The contractor had also not deposited penalties imposed by the MC from time to time on breach of terms and conditions of the agreement till date. The MC had served a show-cause notice on the company on July 4, asking why its licence for operation and management of the parking lots should not be cancelled.