Parking lots have no lane for emergency vehicles

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 23

A day after a fire engine struggled for nearly an hour to reach a fire spot in Sector 17 due to haphazard parking of vehicles, Chandigarh Tribune begins a series highlighting the difficulties being faced at parking lots and indiscipline among vehicle owners in the tricity. The first part of the series brings to the fore the ground reality in all four paid and four unattended parking lots in Sector 17.

While the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) earns over Rs 4.5 crore annually from 25 paid parking lots across the city, it has failed to provide a "people-friendly" paid parking system. Despite the incident yesterday in which a fire engine was stuck in a parking lot for nearly 55 minutes due to haphazard parking, the condition remained the same or was even worse in the parking lots at Sector 17 today.

A majority of the parking lots do not have designated parking space marked with white paint for each vehicle. The parking lots do not have a lane for fire engines to move in case of any mishap. The parking lots are required to have a dedicated lane for the movement of fire vehicles. The main focus of parking lot attendants is to issue manual slips (which is also a violation as e-ticketing machines are mandatory) at the entry point. They are least bothered about the inconvenience faced by people inside the parking lot.

After the incident yesterday, no lessons seem to have been learnt as there was no improvement in the parking of vehicles at the CMC parking lot in Sector 17 today.

Parking attendants continued to allow haphazard parking inside the lot. There was no space for the movement of emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines. The staff were not present inside the lot to help people park their vehicles properly.

The condition of the Bank Square parking lot and the parking area opposite the RLA office in Sector 17 was even worse. People had parked their vehicles behind other vehicles. At the Bank Square parking lot, which was surrendered by the contractor recently, a woman and a youth had heated arguments as the woman had parked her car behind the youth's car with the hand brake on. The youth had to wait for nearly 25 minutes for the woman to return to take out his car.

At the paid parking lots, including the one behind the Neelam cinema and the CMC parking lot, forget CCTVs and electronic ticketing machines for issuing parking slips, parking contractors had not even deployed staff inside the lots.

Violations galore

Presence of staff

While the terms and conditions set by the MC for the parking contractors clearly state that one person should be present at every 50 metres, no person was found inside the parking space at several parking lots. 

Designated parking space

According to the norms, the parking contractors have to ensure that vehicles are parked at the designated places. However, two-wheelers can be found parked in the area designated for four-wheelers. 

CCTV camera

Every paid parking lot needs to get a CCTV camera installed at the entry and the exit for recording the registration number of vehicles. There were non-functional CCTV cameras at various parking lots. 

Uniform for parking attendants

The parking attendants are required to wear a light brown shirt, dark brown trousers, a brown belt and black shoes. However, parking attendants are often found shabbily dressed. 

Complaint box

Every parking lot needs to have a sealed complaint box in which visitors can drop their complaints against the contractor or the attendants. However, hardly any complaint box is found at the parking lots

MC issues notice to CMC parking lot contractor 

The MC on Tuesday issued a notice to the CMC parking lot contractor for haphazard parking on Monday, which blocked the entry of a fire engine on Monday.