MC to allot small vacant parking lots to town residents

To ease the parking woes in the town, the Municipal Corporation (MC), Shimla, has decided to allot 23 of its small parking lots, lying vacant, to people on the first-come-first-serve basis.

Residents of the town are required to apply for the same either by visiting the MC office or by contacting the councillor concerned. As per the MC, 23 of its parking lots are lying vacant, which are in Tutikandi, Khalini, Kaithu, Kanlog, Kacchighat wards, besides others.

MC Joint Commissioner, Shimla, Bhuwan Sharma, said the decision had been taken to provide parking space to the local residents in the town. He said an advertisement would also be issued regarding the same next week.

Earlier, the MC had issued tenders to invite contractors to run these parking lots, but was not able to get the expected results. Despite issuing tenders thrice, the civic body was not able to get contractors to run these lots.

The corporation also considered to turn its vacant parking lots into community halls to generate revenue. However, during the recent monthly meeting of the corporation, several councillors suggested that the civic body should allot these lots to people and also seek application from them for the same.

Apart from this, MC has decided to mark yellow line parkings in all 34 wards of the town. The corporation will also allot the yellow line parking lots to local residents. With this, the corporation not only aims to reduce the parking problem in the town but also hopes to generate additional revenue for itself.

Being a popular hill station, tourists and locals face huge inconvenience to find parking lots for their vehicles due to limited number of parking lots available in the town. As a result, people have no choice but to park their vehicles on roadside, which leads to traffic jams.