Pay first, and then drive past Sec 17 parking lot

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 20

Be it a parking lot or a road, a motorist has to pay the fee. This is what the Sector 17 parking contractor believes. Today, motorists were charged for passing a road near the Medical Officers of Health office.

While the visitors claimed that the act of the parking contractor was uncalled for, the latter said he had discussed the issue with the civic body.

JD Gupta, who passes the road every day, said how could the Municipal Corporation allow the contractor to charge fee from those who just wanted to pass the road. He said the fee could only be charged if someone used the space for parking his/her vehicle. “It is unfair to charge someone for just passing a road,” he said.

The parking at the Medical Officers of Health office has been allotted to the contractor. A large number of employees and visitors use the road passing through the parking lot. Rajat, an employee of a private bank, said he had been using the road for many years, but the problem started recently after the parking lot was allotted to the contractor. He said every time, he passed the parking lot, staff stopped him and asked for fee.

On the issue, Sandeep Vohra, project director, Arya Toll Infra Limited, which has been given the parking contract to manage and run all 26 parking lots of the city, including the one in Sector 17, said: “We have been facing the problem since the beginning. People park vehicles along the road. We are getting only 30 per cent revenue from the parking.”

He added that they had forwarded two proposals to the MC. One was to allow them to block the passage completely and the other was to allow vehicles to use the road only at peak hours. He said the concept had already been adopted by smart cities like Indore. The MC said the proposals were under consideration.