People visiting AIIMS will now have a respite from the parking woes in and around hospital premises with the opening of a multi-level underground parking. located behind the AIIMS in Masjid Moth, the three-level parking lot can accommodate over 400 cars and that too at reasonable charge. Car owners will have to pay Rs20 for the first four hours and Rs5 for every subsequent hour.
The parking facility is equipped with modern technology like the electronic entry and exit boom barrier with an automatic ticketing system. For the user entry and exit it has four lifts and five staircases. It took nine months to complete the project.
“The AIIMS has thousands of visitors everyday which include huge number of staff members and doctors. To keep the security aspect in view, the whole area will be under 24 hours CCTV surveillance,” said YK Gupta, the spokesperson for the AIIMS.
The multi-level parking would help decongestion of the AIIMS premises where, according to a recent traffic survey, approximately 14,000 vehicles — including 5,000 cars enter everyday.
“AIIMS has parking capacity of less than 1,000 cars that is nearly two-third of which is used to park vehicles of its faculty and staff members. The new facility would help decongestion of the campus,” said Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad after inaugurating the facility.
The three-level underground parking, foundation stone of which was laid down in October 2011, was completed in August 2012. The parking lot, however, could not be put into use owing to pending clearance from various Government agencies.
Constructed with the stipulated project cost of Rs53.57 crore, the parking has a total covered area of 21,742 square metres and capacity to park 434 four-wheelers. “Final statutory approval by New Delhi Municipal Council was granted on May 5 this year,” said Gupta.
Stating that provisions in the existing Master Plan have already been exploited to develop new centres in the AIIMS, Azad emphasised on the need to rapidly develop a new Master Plan for the institute. He underlined that the new plan has already been cleared by the NDMC and would be sent to Delhi Urban Art Commission for further clearance.
Asked about the six AIIMS-like institutes, Azad said MBBS courses have already been commenced in the institutes and first phase of the treatment facilities would be operational by August. “Super-speciality facilities would start functioning by December this year,” he said.