Cost of surface parking likely to be five-fold
In a bid to discourage private vehicle owners from parking on road sides, which leads to traffic congestion, the Delhi Government is mulling to penalise those who do not use multilevel parking facilities. People often avoid using multilevel parking because there are long queues to enter these lots. The multilevel parking lots, which were introduced to solve the problem of Delhi’s parking space crunch, are not being utilised now. If the recommendation of a high-level committee, set up by the lieutenant Governor, is accepted then the cost of surface parking will be pretty steep, as the panel has sought a marginal hike in parking rates across the board. The committee is set to recommend that rates for surface parking be raised five-fold in areas where multilevel parking exists.
The committee was set up by lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung after Delhi was described as the most polluted city in the world, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) report.“We would recommend increasing the rates of surface parking by five times than multilevel parking fee. Currently, one pays Rs 10 per hour for multilevel parking while for surface parking rate is Rs 20 per hour. There is general tendency in Delhi that
people do not use multilevel parking and prefer to park vehicles on roadside that often leads to congestion,” said an official who is part of the high-level committee, on condition of anonymity.“There is lot of congestion as the cars are parked on the roadsides leaving little or no space for pedestrians. People refrain from using multilevel parking as there long queues to enter these lots and also it takes times to come out from them,” said the official.
The recommendations of the committee will be sent to Jung for approval. However, if the strategy is to be implemented, authorities will have to deal with the parking mafia and middlemen, who usually get illegal parking done for car users. According to a study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), nearly 1,300 vehicles come out on Delhi’s roads each year, requiring parking space equivalent to nearly 310 football fields. The study further states that almost 10 per cent of the total urban land in Delhi is under parking.