For want of technical ‘know how’ regarding the hand-held devices used for collecting parking fee at different locations of the city, the Bhopal Municipal Corporation is incurring huge losses.
The Bhopal Municipal Corporation which manages and monitors the work of collecting parking charges across the city is not able to manage the system of collecting charges in an efficient manner and several irregularities could be seen in the system.Before the introduction of the hand-held machines the persons employed by the BMC and private contractors used to provide a slip for the parking, but the BMC found the system faulty and bore heavy losses due to the lack of keeping an account of the revenue generated by the system.
Additional Commissioner Pradeep Verma said that around 100 machines were procured from an Indore based company and around 90 machines have been distributed. Around 10 machines have been kept in extra which could be used whenever required.While talking to The Pioneer, Officer of Zone 7 Mazhar Ali said that around 18 machines have been provided for his Zone and four out of 18 machines are not working due to technical snag.
He further added that the Indore based company which had supplied the machines also provides technical assistance in the maintenance of the machines. One of the employees who were collecting parking charges at New Market area near Kwality restaurant was not aware of the contact details of the contractor and was not aware that he works for BMC or contractor. “At around 1 pm when we asked him about the machine he told that the machines are deposited at around 9 pm with BMC and are given back next day at around 12 noon (Officials told that the time is around 11 am). Whatever the time they are provided with the machines till 1.45 pm when we left the persons employed for collecting parking charges were not provided with machines,” he added.
Other person collecting parking charges in front of SBI at Rangmahal square also did not have machine and narrated the same story.
No technical assistance has been provided by the company as their technicians are Indore based and have to visit to provide assistance which is not regularized.
Zone Officer of Zone number 10 Anil Shama said that around 41 machines have been provided for the zone and around 15-20 persons have been employed to collect the parking charges. This zone was also facing the same problems of technical issues with the machines and has around 7 machines which are facing technical faults.
He accepted that for fully charging of the machines around 8-10 hours of charging is required and the battery discharges after 3-4 hours of continuous work.
Ironically, Additional Commissioner Pradeep Verma claims that he has not received any such complaint regarding the Hand Held Devices. However, he claimed that he would look into the matter, after he has come to know.