Motorists in north Delhi areas can now expect relief from overcharging and other malpractices by parking operators. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) is soon going to introduce a common smart card system in all its parking lots.
The smart card will be similar to the ones used in Delhi Metro. The prepaid parking card, which primarily aims to keep a check on illegal activities of parking mafia, can be used for making payments in all parking lots, including street parking. To ensure people-friendly services, the civic body has also directed all its parking attendants to procure hand-held devices that will also be equipped with card-reading facility.
“The proposed parking card will be valid at all parking lots, including street parking, underground or multi-level car parking lots, falling in the North Corporation’s jurisdiction. It will also help in streamlining the parking mechanism and curb revenue loss to the Corporation,” said a senior official of the Remunerative Project (RP) Cell of the Corporation. “Introduction of the common card in parking lots is after repeated complaints were made against errant parking contractors. Most complaints concerned overcharging. As per the revised parking policy, all parking lots will be IT-enabled with a mandatory provision for hand-held devices,” said Yogendra Singh Mann, Director (Press and Information), NMC.
At a recent meeting, all parking contractors have been directed to procure the hand-held device within 15 days, failing which punitive action would be initiated against them. “The devices will be capable of reading the cards. The cards will have to be swiped at the time of entry and exit. The device will automatically calculate the time and deduct the amount,” officials said. Further, the parking details pertaining to a vehicle can be sent to the backend servers through these GPRS-enabled devices. Also, the machines would facilitate physical downloading of data, as and when required.
The stored data, as officials said, could be shared with the police as well. Officials believe a major problem of illegal and disruptive parking could be checked with introduction of the smart card system. “It has been observed that several parking contractors allow vehicles to be parked on streets beyond the space allotted by the Corporation. The contractors, in contravention of rules, also charge extra from motorists for illegal parking. With the card system in effect, parking attendants will not be able to mint money from motorists,” they said.