Parking woes on horizon as 37 Shimla lots to shut for a month

Shimla, August 31

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Even as Shimla faces a shortage of parking space for vehicles, the local Municipal Corporation has decided to close 37 lots across the town for one month as it has not been able to find contractors to run these facilities.

As these parking lots have the capacity to park 10 to 40 vehicles, locals could face parking woes in the days to come.

As per the MC, it had floated tenders three times to invite contractors to take over the operation of these parking lots, but no response was received.

As a result, people continued to park their vehicles in some of these lots without paying any fee, causing loss to the civic body.

Shimla Municipal Corporation Commissioner Bhupinder Attri said the decision was taken as the corporation was not able to generate revenue from these parking lots. He said the corporation needed the contractors to operate the lots as it did not have enough staff to run these facilities.

He said a proposal had also been made to turn these parking lots into gymnasiums or community centres in order to facilitate the locals. Apart from this, the Municipal Corporation has decided to issue fresh tenders for yellow line parkings.

During the recent monthly house meeting of the Municipal Corporation, held under the chairmanship of Surender Chauhan, several councillors suggested and supported the decision to close these parking lots for 30 days. Raising the issue, Lower Bazaar ward councillor Umang Banga said there was a parking lot near the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex where only eight persons were paying parking fee while the rest were parking their vehicles for free.