Around a year ago, the Coimbatore Corporation floated tender for setting up 30 on-street parking facility at as many places across the city. Two weeks thereafter, on January 10, 2018, the civic body officials held a pre-bid meeting and by January 31, 2018 the officials closed the bid submissions.
The objective of the project, to be executed on design-build-operate-and-transfer model, was to regulate parking, introduce paid parking lots on roads that often see congestion and provide user-friendly parking system.
The corporation had proposed to award the contract for five years to the successful bidder, who would have to create necessary hardware and software – LED signages, set up and maintain central control centre, develop mobile application for road users to park vehicles, etc. The successful bidder would also have to collect the tariff fixed by the Corporation and the Coimbatore City Traffic Police.
The officials said the project would have divided the city into three parking zones – paid parking zones, free parking zones and no-parking zones.
But nothing much happened after the corporation evaluated the bids and awarded the contract to the lowest bidder. Officials familiar with the reasons for the delay said that it was due to opposition from activists and political parties, who did not want parking to be monetised.
As the opposition grew louder, the corporation decided to wait and watch and let the political parties reach a consensus. And, there rested the issue in the last nine months, the officials added.