Enforcement will be biggest task for civic agencies
Not only do the municipal corporations of Delhi have nearly 80% of the parking lots under them, they also have 14,086 kilometres of roads under them — which again is more than half of what other agencies own.
This means that the biggest responsibility of implementing the Parking Policy for Delhi will be upon the MCDs. Once the final policy is approved by lieutenant governor Anil Baijal, the municipal corporations will have to initiate a slew of measures, the first of which would be to introduce differential parking rates. This means that the existing rates of ₹10-20 per hour will be changed.
The draft policy will now be open to public for their comments and suggestions for 30 days after which the government will analyse the feedback received and make amendments accordingly. “Once that is done, the file will go to the chief minister and then the final approval of the L-G will be sought,” said transport commissioner Varsha Joshi.
She explained that the policy will be a directive which will be binding on all agencies. “It is a document which has been prepared after consultations with a number of agencies and experts,” she said.
Spearheaded by the L-G, the policy lays down a number of actions to be taken by the MCDs and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).
They have been asked to identify space for commercial parking and develop vacant plots in residential areas for private parking. They will also have to develop more multi-level parking lots, delegate enforcement power to road owning agencies and create an automated parking system.
The municipal corporations welcomed the move and said they would act according to the policy. “We would implement the parking policy in its totality. Regular progress reports of the policies that we will have to frame will also be taken into account,” said Puneet Goyal, commissioner of South Delhi Municipal Corporation.
He, however, mentioned that the policy invariably means increasing enforcement manifold which is difficult with the corporation’s current staff strength. “For that we will do capacity building to increase our resources,” Goyal said.