Dedicated staff to man DC office parking

Raghav Guleria

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Dharamsala, March 2

The district administration has finally decided to deploy dedicated staff at the multistory parking lot at the Secretariat right in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office here. The parking space was lying unattended since its construction a few years ago and had become a shelter for stray animals. Garbage and cow dung was littered all over the place. The authorities had tried to auction the parking space several times, but without success. The Kangra DC has now decided to regulate the parking space by appointing dedicated staff.

The DC said, “We are concerned for cleanliness of the area and convenience of the vehicle owners who use the parking lot. The administration plans to devise some digitised arrangement by making use of Fastag to manage the parking lot. For the time being, we are appointing our employees to regulate the lot so that the public is not inconvenienced.”

According to Shailender Mehta, a resident of Civil Lines, “If a proper caretaker is appointed for the parking lot at the DC office, there will be no chaos. Right now, vehicles are parked in an irregular and haphazard manner. Systematic and planned parking will certainly create ample space for more vehicles thereby reducing vehicular congestion. Moreover, the parking area has become a resting place for stray cattle and dogs which are a big nuisance to the end users.”

Subhas Gautam, AC to DC Kangra, who is entrusted with the upkeep of this facility, said the parking space had been put to auction several times, but every time the highest offer was much lower than the PWD’s reserve price. “They have assessed it for around Rs 25 lakh a year whereas the highest offer before us was less than Rs 5 lakh, the AC said,” adding that, “We are thinking of some workable arrangement wherein we can man it ourselves . This arrangement on pilot basis will give us a fair idea of the collection scale. We cannot lease it for peanuts.”