Saturday, May 2, 2009
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Pay up. You may or may not get the necessary services. But one thing is for sure. With both NDMC and MCD hiking up parking charges, taking out the car will definitely burn a hole in your pocket.
The hike will hurt most office-goers and shoppers, who tend to park their cars for long durations.
The moolah
Come September, the NDMC is all set to revise its parking charges upwards in Connaught Place, Dilli Haat, Sarojini Nagar Market and Yashwant Place to Rs 20 for the first hour and Rs 10 for each subsequent hours. So the next time you go out on a shopping spree, you better budget for parking charges as well. And by the next year, this NDMC infection is likely to be passed on to MCD areas like South Extension, Karol Bagh, GK-I Market. In other words, you would be forced to think twice before taking out your car to almost anywhere in the city.
The MCD is not far behind when it comes to rationalisation of parking charges. While you paid a standard Rs 10 for parking a car for 12 hours and Rs 5 for scooters, the new system will be hourly-based.
Under the new system, one has to pay Rs 5 for parking the car for first two hours and Rs 3 for every additional hour. Similarly, one would be paying Rs 5 for the first four hours of scooter parking and Rs 2 for every two hours. Thus, one has pay Rs 25 for parking his car for 12 hours instead of Rs 10.
Parking nightmare
Check out any parking area and you can see how chaos reigns. In commercial areas the situation is even worse. Rude and unhelpful attendants, slow moving traffic and lack of a parking management strategy have made parking a living nightmare.
The chaos in the current scenario is attributed to the fact that parking has not been made a lucrative business. For instance, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) earns approximately Rs 2-3 crore from its 150 parking lots, while Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) earns an equally paltry Rs 12 crore annually from 100 parking lots. Most of the cash is pocketed well before it reaches the right coffers, say officials.
This may just be the tip of the iceberg. According to an MCD official, parking tenders are manipulated by local councillors and MLAs, who influence civic officials and police, on behalf of the tender mafia. And the net profit is huge. "You need muscle power to run a parking lot. An average parking lot fetches between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh per month," the official said.
How it will change
MCD claims that parking charges will be hiked only after it provides some basic facilities. The civic agency plans to introduce computerised entry and exits at parking spaces, along with toilets, fire-fighting equipments, public address systems and power backup.
While the new payment scheme will come into practice at three MCD parking lots at the multi-level parking in Asaf Ali Road and Church Mission Road and Gandhi Maidan Parking near Fountain Chowk with immediate effect, it will be implemented at the other parking lots in a phased manner, say MCD officials.
And to ensure that the notorious parking contractors do not continue to take the vehicle owners for a ride, the new parking policy has made it "compulsory" for those manning parking sites to issue both the acknowledgement receipt and parking charge receipt printed only through the computers, having special software provided by the MCD that cannot be doctored.
The MCD has also identified all unauthorised parking lots across the city. These sites will be regularised and given to contractors through auction. At present, the MCD officially has less than 70 parking sites, while the number of unauthorised ones is estimated to be in several hundreds. As a result, the revenue loss runs in crores.
MCD has also developed signages for the parking lots that would be strictly adhered to by the contractors. Besides, space for commercial advertisements, it would contain all relevant details about the contractor and the parking lot. "Contract from now onwards would be for three years and not for one year," officials said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Pay up. You may or may not get the necessary services. But one thing is for sure. With both NDMC and MCD hiking up parking charges, taking out the car will definitely burn a hole in your pocket.
The hike will hurt most office-goers and shoppers, who tend to park their cars for long durations.
The moolah
Come September, the NDMC is all set to revise its parking charges upwards in Connaught Place, Dilli Haat, Sarojini Nagar Market and Yashwant Place to Rs 20 for the first hour and Rs 10 for each subsequent hours. So the next time you go out on a shopping spree, you better budget for parking charges as well. And by the next year, this NDMC infection is likely to be passed on to MCD areas like South Extension, Karol Bagh, GK-I Market. In other words, you would be forced to think twice before taking out your car to almost anywhere in the city.
The MCD is not far behind when it comes to rationalisation of parking charges. While you paid a standard Rs 10 for parking a car for 12 hours and Rs 5 for scooters, the new system will be hourly-based.
Under the new system, one has to pay Rs 5 for parking the car for first two hours and Rs 3 for every additional hour. Similarly, one would be paying Rs 5 for the first four hours of scooter parking and Rs 2 for every two hours. Thus, one has pay Rs 25 for parking his car for 12 hours instead of Rs 10.
Parking nightmare
Check out any parking area and you can see how chaos reigns. In commercial areas the situation is even worse. Rude and unhelpful attendants, slow moving traffic and lack of a parking management strategy have made parking a living nightmare.
The chaos in the current scenario is attributed to the fact that parking has not been made a lucrative business. For instance, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) earns approximately Rs 2-3 crore from its 150 parking lots, while Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) earns an equally paltry Rs 12 crore annually from 100 parking lots. Most of the cash is pocketed well before it reaches the right coffers, say officials.
This may just be the tip of the iceberg. According to an MCD official, parking tenders are manipulated by local councillors and MLAs, who influence civic officials and police, on behalf of the tender mafia. And the net profit is huge. "You need muscle power to run a parking lot. An average parking lot fetches between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh per month," the official said.
How it will change
MCD claims that parking charges will be hiked only after it provides some basic facilities. The civic agency plans to introduce computerised entry and exits at parking spaces, along with toilets, fire-fighting equipments, public address systems and power backup.
While the new payment scheme will come into practice at three MCD parking lots at the multi-level parking in Asaf Ali Road and Church Mission Road and Gandhi Maidan Parking near Fountain Chowk with immediate effect, it will be implemented at the other parking lots in a phased manner, say MCD officials.
And to ensure that the notorious parking contractors do not continue to take the vehicle owners for a ride, the new parking policy has made it "compulsory" for those manning parking sites to issue both the acknowledgement receipt and parking charge receipt printed only through the computers, having special software provided by the MCD that cannot be doctored.
The MCD has also identified all unauthorised parking lots across the city. These sites will be regularised and given to contractors through auction. At present, the MCD officially has less than 70 parking sites, while the number of unauthorised ones is estimated to be in several hundreds. As a result, the revenue loss runs in crores.
MCD has also developed signages for the parking lots that would be strictly adhered to by the contractors. Besides, space for commercial advertisements, it would contain all relevant details about the contractor and the parking lot. "Contract from now onwards would be for three years and not for one year," officials said.
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