MC wants ‘barter deal’ with Admn

Rajinder Nagarkoti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 30

While the UT Administration and the Municipal Corporation have been proposing a number of initiatives to increase revenue generation, at a meeting of the MC General House today, the MC okayed a “barter deal” of free parking passes.

The MC House today resolved to provide free parking passes to official vehicles of the UT Administration. In return, MC officials will now send a proposal seeking entry passes for councillors to the UT Secretariat and the Deputy Commissioner’s office.

At present, the UT does not provide entry passes to councillors and neither does the MC provide free parking passes to UT officials.

In their agenda, MC officials had proposed, “The MC has been receiving requests from the heads of various departments of the Chandigarh Administration for issuance of free parking stickers. However, in the absence of any provision or a decision in this regard, the MC is not able to issue free parking stickers to any office. The demand for free parking stickers by various departments has been a regular feature at the parking branch”. 

During a discussion at the MC House meeting, BJP councillor Saurabh Joshi opposed the agenda and suggested that all complimentary parking stickers to councillors and MC officials should be cancelled. He even proposed that officials and councillors should come on bicycles for MC House meetings. 

However, other councillors were of the view that instead of forcing this decision, the health condition and age of councillors should be considered. Congress councillor Pardeep Chhabra said while the MC was giving free parking passes to UT officials, when elected or nominated councillors visited the UT Secretariat or the DC office, the staff posted there humiliated them and stopped their vehicles from entering the premises. Earlier, the UT used to give entry stickers of these buildings to councillors, but the practice had now been stopped, he said.Finally, MC Commissioner Bhawna Garg said today that they would allow free parking stickers to UT officials and at a later stage, they would request the UT to issue entry stickers to councillors.   

What UT officials got Free parking passes for the following officers

• All vehicles of the office of the UT Administrator
• All vehicles of the office of the UT Adviser
• Home Secretary, Finance Secretary, Deputy Commissioner and SDMs
• All secretaries and heads of departments of the UT Administration
• All IAS, IPS, PCS and HCS officers, and DSPs posted in Chandigarh 

 What the MC hopes to get

After passing the agenda for free parking passes to vehicles of UT officials, the MC at a later stage will take up the issue of providing entry stickers to councillors for the UT Secretariat and the DC office.