Civic body inspects parking lots, finds several violations

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

A day after Chandigarh Tribune highlighted how parking lot contractors have been overcharging city residents and violating norms, the municipal corporation staff today conducted inspections at various parking lots across the city and detected various violations.

On the directions of MC Additional Commissioner Sarita Malik, teams of the MC conducted the inspections. The teams found that commuters were being overcharged at the Sukhna Lake parking lot.

CCTV cameras were found non-functional at the Fun Republic, Mani Majra, parking lot and the MOH paid parking lot at Sector 17.

The teams found that no ticketing machine was installed and parking slips were being issued manually at all parking lots across the city.

At the Elante Mall, Industrial Area, Phase I, parking lot, the MC teams found haphazard parking, attendants without name plates and lack of a ticketing machine for issuing tickets. Similarly, in Sectors 34 and 35, violations such as haphazard parking, attendants without name plates and lack of ticketing machines were detected.

Violations were also detected at the Sector 22 parking lot, an MC official said.

MC Additional Commissioner Sarita Malik said the MC would continue surprise inspections in the coming days. It would not tolerate violations at the paid parking lots and heavy penalties would be imposed on the violators, she said.

Why contractors issue parking slips manually

The MC norms stipulate that ticketing machines have to be installed to issue parking slips to commuters, but contractors are violating the norms blatantly. A senior MC official said on the ticketing machine slip, a commuter could see the parking charges while in the slip issued manually, the contractors “hide the charges”.