The State Government has formed Special Squads to check illegal parking and fee collection in the off-street areas of Bhubaneswar.
“Apart from the designated sites, where Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) would levy fees for parking, other establishments can’t collect parking charges despite own parking slots inside and outside their premises,” said Urban Development Minister Pratap Jena on Thursday.
Earlier, taking note of the instances of illegal parking fee collection at commercial buildings, shopping malls, multiplexes, hospitals, apartments and housing projects in the city, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on Wednesday asked the property owners and developers to stop collecting parking fees from visitors on the premises immediately while terming the practice as ‘illegal’.
“It has come to the notice of the BDA that different shopping malls, multiplexes and apartments are imposing parking charges/fees. This is not consistent with the provisions of the BDA (P&BS) regulations as well as the approved building plan and the developers/owners are hereby directed to stop the illegal practice of charging parking fees from the visitors, immediately,” the BDA stated in a release.
The BDA further said the parking area shown in the approved building plan is being used for purposes other than parking vehicles on some such buildings. Such misuse of parking is resulting in on-street parking and thereby adversely affecting the traffic movement on the public road.
Notably, the BDA (Planning & Building Standards) Regulations, 2018 prescribe that mandatory off-street parking shall be provided in commercial buildings. The sub-regulation (7) of regulation 37 of the aforesaid regulations prescribes that the misuse of the parking spaces shall be summarily removed or demolished by the BDA.
The BDA also asked the property developers and owners to abide by the mandatory off-street parking provisions in the approved building plan. “Any deviations in the parking provisions shall be restored by the owners as per the provisions of approved building plan within 30 days from the date of issue of this notice,” the release added.