Delhi: New rules to hike on-street parking charges by 2-3 times

NEW DELHI: On-street parking may get costlier by twothree times the current rates, depending upon the time of the day, once the new parking rules come into force.
Civic officials working on the proposal said that the increase is a must to discourage people from occupying parking lots for 12-18 hours at a stretch in busy markets. Shopkeepers usually park their vehicles in markets the entire day.

Residents, however, have questioned the move saying that the corporations must make efforts to improve the parking infrastructure considering there are just 416 surface parking lots in the city, 40-50% being on the roadsides.Apart from these, there are 18 stack and multilevel parking lots with space for 11,500 vehicles. All parking lots combined cater to 94,000 vehicles. This is far then than what is required. Lack of space forces people to leave their vehicles on the roadside, outside shops or on pavements.
Pankaj Agarwal, member of Safdarjung Enclave RWA, said that a common parking plan can’t be implemented in the entire city. Residents said steps must be taken to check
illegal parking and complete multilevel lots in a time-bound manner.
“It would be unfair to charge higher rates from people using on-street parking. To reduce congestion from the main roads, it is more important to check illegal parking. On Chaudhary Jhandu Singh Marg, illegal parking has been going on for years. Similarly, on Aurobindo Marg, despite several drives, people continue to double or even triple park because the contractor doesn’t stop them,” Agarwal said.
A South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) official said that residential area parking plan would be made in consultation with RWAs and, if needed, new paid parking lots would be created.
“The purpose of the parking area management plan is to reduce and manage demand. It can be achieved by penalising illegal parking and introducing variable pricing during peak hours. It can also include sharing of facilities, both off- and on-street, between different peak users,” said Anumita Roy Chowdhary, executive director (research and advocacy), Centre for Science and Environment.
Roy Chowdhary added that the plan cannot be confined to parking lots and structures. “A complete street and area management approach is needed to address the need of all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, public transport and para-transit vehicles,” she said.
Rajendra Sharda of MBlock GK-I market association said that a multilevel parking was promised in the area years ago. “The project is yet to see the light of the day. On weekends, people park on connecting roads when surface parking lots get full. We had paid one-time parking charges to the corporation, but the funds were not utilised for developing any facility,” he added.
An SDMC official said they are making efforts to identify new spaces for surface or stack parking. “We have finalised 35 sites. Of these, 18 belong to DDA. We have asked them to allocate the land to us. We are not planning multilevel parking lots as their construction will take time,” he added.
“We constructed multilevel parking lots at Kamla Nagar and Hauz Khas, but they are not utilised to half their capacity,” said a corporation official.