Parking in north Delhi came under the corporation’s scanner on Monday as both the House and Opposition members lashed out against allegations of parking mafia overcharging commuters.

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   Corporators raised the issue with Mayor Azad Singh in the House meeting on Monday, saying the parking mafia is running amok at various sites such as Gandhi Maidan and Parade Ground parking lots.

“When the monthly parking rate is R600, they are charging R800. This is how they are looting residents of north Delhi. When the corporation has not changed the parking fee, how can contractors overcharge,” leader of the Opposition in north corporation, Mukesh Goel, said.

When contacted, Sanjay Bhargava, general secretary of the Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, said the contractor at Parade Ground parking has been charging R30 per entry as against R10 approved by the civic body.

“From Friday, the lot is charging R30 for surface parking. If anyone raises their voice, they are threatened and ordered not to park at the lot. They are also issuing parking slips of MCD with Jama Masjid printed as site of parking and not Parade Ground,” Bhargava said.

Municipal commissioner PK Gupta said showcause notices will be sent to parking contractors against whom the complaints have been filed. “Firsttime offenders will have to pay 25 per cent of their licence fee as fine, which will become 50 per cent the second time, 75 per cent the third time and 100 per cent the fourth time. If a contractor is found overcharging the fifth time, his licence will be cancelled,” Gupta said.

Leader of the House Mahinder Nagpal said these unscrupulous individuals needed to be dealt with stern action.

“We didn’t raise the parking charges thinking about the people. However, some people are doing exactly that. I had called three days back and asked the officials about this after a complaint came to me. The parking mafia won’t be tolerated,” Nagpal said.

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 But airport officials claim the tariff is not meant to discourage people from using cars. “Despite the best possible facility, parking charges here are still less,” an official said.

Recently, the airport began charging on even private cars waiting in the pick-up lane at the domestic terminal 1C after five minutes. After that, an overstaying charge of Rs. 100 is levied for the next five minutes and every subsequent five minutes mean shelling out Rs. 50.

The official said the system was meant to reduce congestion and manage traffic.

At AIIMS campus, one has to pay Rs. 100 for parking for up to four hours. After that, Rs. 15 has to be paid for every subsequent hour. So even if you park for 10 minutes, be ready to shell out Rs. 100.

For many family members of patients and their visitors, the charges came as a rude shock. “I had visited an ailing colleague for just 15 minutes and had to pay Rs. 100. Had I know how exorbitant the rates were, I wouldn’t have brought my car,” said Ritesh Sharma, a resident of Vasant Kunj.

According to AIIMS officials, the move aims at discouraging people to park in the premises.

“Due to the space crunch, we have kept parking charges high. This helps in decongestion,” said Dr YK Gupta, AIIMS spokesperson.

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And yet land is a scare commodity. Already 11% of Delhi is being used for parking even as 1,400 new vehicles — of which 470 are cars — are added to the city’s roads every day.

As per government estimates, over 75 lakh cars are running on the Capital’s roads. “The speed of traffic on arterial roads has decreased significantly. Moreover, personal cars registered last year demanded parking space equivalent to the size of 310 football fields. In the years to come, valuable public land will be taken up for parking,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, Centre for Science and Environment.

“The ongoing urban emissions. info study on speed busts the myth that cars are the best way to travel in Delhi and NCR. The pilot study in south Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Gurgaon and Dwarka found that cars crawled at 4 kmph for almost 24 minutes in two hours of driving and one million cars waste 2,00,000 liters of fuel for plying daily. The study also cautions against building new roads and flyovers,” Roy chowdhury said, adding that Delhi is so gridlocked and polluted considering when 48 per cent of the Capital’s households do not own any vehicle.

When quizzed about the solutions to the mess, she said Delhi should follow the example set by other big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing.

But the municipal agencies feel otherwise. “We have written to the L-G. The order on hiking parking charges is not acceptable. Even when the municipal commissioner in his budget proposal had proposed the hike, we had not agreed,” leader of the House in North Corporation Mahender Nagpal had said.

Standing committee chairman of the S outh Delhi Municipal Corporation Rajesh Gehlot said, “We are not implementing these revised parking rates. We have to think of the people who have elected us. We had promised them that we won’t increase parking charges. We can’t put additional burden on them. ”

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The North municipal body has decided to inaugurate its first automated multi-level parking at Kamla Nagar on April 20. A week later, the conventional multi-level parking at Model Town will be inaugurated.

Incidentally, both the projects work would be declared open to the public in the year which is set to witness assembly elections in the city. Both the BJP-ruled civic bodies and the Congress-ruled state government have been in an overdrive to woo voters.

“The Kamla Nagar parking is complete and so is the Model Town parking. Once they are opened, the visitors in these areas will find enough space to park their cars,” said a senior official. The corporation has at least seven parking projects, on which work was on for the past five years.

A host of inauguration functions would be held to woo voters since the assembly elections are scheduled later this year. The civic body has completed the tender process for parkings at Rani Bagh and Ashok Vihar and the projects may be announced to get political mileage.

The Kamla Nagar automated multi-level parking was announced in 2007 and the Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna laid the foundation stone.

The parking project is spread over 3,200 square metres and has seven levels that will accommodate 834 cars and 300 scooters.

Once completed, the project will provide a much-needed breather to the Kamla Nagar market, which currently witnesses congestion as visitors leave their vehicles on the roadside.

“When the project is inaugurated on April 20, it will be thrown open for the public for trial. Parking charges will be imposed only when we are satisfied that the system is properly working,” said leader of the House Mahender Nagpal.

The municipal body may also have to face disappointment as the other two automated multi-level parking in the city are not very popular with the commuters.

Built by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the Baba Kharak Singh Marg and the Sarojini Nagar parkings are still being under-utilised.

North Corporation is not the only municipal body that is trying to complete its projects before the assembly elections. South Corporation last week announced that work orders for parking projects at Defence Colony, Munirka and Subhash Nagar have been given.

Source-http://paper.hindustantimes.com