Pay Rs 6,000 a year to park your car in the neighbourhood at night: KMC

KOLKATA: Pay Rs 6,000 a year and book a parking slot for your car in your neighbourhood without any hassle. Such an offer has come from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation car parking department that has devised a scheme for the car owners who don't have garages to keep their cars.
However, the KMC offer is restricted to night parking only and the owner of a car will need to take away his/her car after 7am.

According to a civic official, only residential neighbourhoods in Kolkata accommodate around 30,000 four-wheelers which are parked illegally.
To get rid of the problem, the KMC car parking department has been conducting raids and towing away cars. Besides, the civic body imposes Rs 1,000 as penalty on the owner of a car who parks his/her car on the street without approval from the KMC car parking department. But the problem persists and gets compounded because of the dearth of space and a growing number of personal cars. "Now we have come to the conclusion that raiding the neighbourhoods for towing away cars or levying penalties won't solve the problem. We will need to offer the same space to the owner with a legal stamp against a nominal fee," said a KMC official.
All a car owner needs to do is apply to the KMC car parking department to avail such an offer. A KMC inspector will visit the spot and make an inquiry before granting the space to the applicant. Based on the survey of the spot, the applicant will be asked to give a self-declaration about his/her car and pay Rs 6,000 (for a year) and obtain a permission from the KMC car parking department. According to a KMC official, several car owners from across the city have time and again requested the civic officials to allot a parking space near their premises as under compulsion, these car owners keep their cars on the road near their houses at night.
"During raids at night we have noticed that a section of car owners who are residents of standalone apartments don't have garages. The problem is acute for the residents of the standalone apartment or residential buildings which were constructed before the KMC made it compulsory for the builders to keep a mandatory space for garages in their building plans," said a civic official.
Sources in the KMC car parking department said the civic body was particularly offering the facility to residents of the city's prime residential neighbourhoods such as Kankurgachi, Phoolbagan, Beliaghata, Maniktala, Bhowanipore, Kidderpore, Monoharpukur Road, Lake View Road, Ballygunge, Jodhpur Park, Jadavpur and Patuli among other areas.