Civic body amends rules to rein in parking mafia

Tribune News Service

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, February 5

The Amritsar Municipal Corporation has reduced the rates of parking lots with no one evincing interest in bidding after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Even after holding e-bids again and again, nine parking lots do not have a contractor. The Municipal Corporation again issued the e-auction bid for these nine parking lots yesterday and also reduced the reserve price of parking stands which have not been operational for a long time. The e-auction bid of the parking stands will have to be submitted by the contractors till February 9.

Why parking rules changed

• Parking mafia used to bag the contract at high bidding price
• The influential used to get contracts by paying the first installment
• After collecting parking fee and overcharging for a year, they did not pay pending installments
• The MC would blacklist the contractor
• Next year, same persons would get the contract in some other name

This time, the MC opened bids for parking lots at Mata Kaulan Hospital, Amandeep Hospital, Telephone Exchange, District Library, Rani Ka Bagh to Uppal Hospital, outside State Bank to Hotel Park, outside Saroop Rani College to Cantonment Chowk, parking lot of Municipal Corporation Office, Ranjit Avenue, outside New DTO office, near Celebration Mall, Link Road, Machhi Mandi, KD Hospital and Chhachi Hospital to Karam Singh ward.

Except for the parking at MC’s head office, all other parking lots are on the roadside, where commuters park their vehicles as they have to visit some place. Observing the revenue opportunities, the MC had started charging for parking on the roads.

Earlier, there was a parking mafia that used to bag the contract to run the parking lots at high bidding price. The politically influential used to get these contracts by paying the first installment of the total bidding amount. After collecting the high parking fee and overcharging for the parking for a year, they did not pay the pending installments. At the end of the year, the MC used to blacklist the contractor. Next year, the same persons would get the contract in some other name.

Estate Officer Dharminderjit Singh amended the rules and now the parking contractors have to pay 50 per cent of the total amount in advance, 25 per cent bank guarantee and 25 per cent security deposit. Only genuine parking contractors can participate in the bidding and get the parking lot at genuine rates. This is why the MC has revised the price.

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