Terms & conditions for contract not okayed, paid parking lots lie unattended

Rajinder Nagarkoti

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 19

While the Municipal Corporation (MC) has failed to finalise terms and conditions of paid parking in the city, the parking lots, whose contract period have expired, are lying unattended.

After the expiry of the contract period, there is neither any MC employee or the contractor’s staff to manage the Sector 17 Empire store parking lot.

The contract period of the parking lots of Sectors 35 and 9, and Fun Republic are going to expire next month.

In the recent MC House meeting, a committee was formed to finalise parking rates and terms and conditions of the paid parking system in the city. The first meeting of the committee was scheduled for September 18 but as quorum was not complete, it could not take place.

A senior MC official said they would auction parking lots only when the terms and conditions of paid parking system were finalised.

Councillors were against the MC’s proposal to increase parking charges.

The MC had proposed to start hourly parking system in all 25 parking lots of the city. The aim behind introducing the system was to avoid congestion.

The MC had proposed that for four-wheelers, Rs 10 will be charged for the first four hours and subsequently, Rs 5 each for every two hours. The MC had proposed that Rs 30 will be charged for the parking of four-wheelers up to 12 hours and for above 12 hours, Rs 40 will be charged.

Similarly for two-wheelers, Rs 5 will be charged for the first four hours. For up to 12 hours, the MC will charge Rs 17 while for parking for above 12 hours Rs 20 will be charged.

At present, the parking charges are Rs 2 for a two-wheeler and Rs 5 for four-wheelers. Besides, the MC has also proposed to start e-ticketing at all paid parking lots in Chandigarh. All paid parking lots will be turned into automatic parking lots. The MC also proposed to start smart card for paid parking. The smart cards will be recharged by e-Sampark centres.