Sent to junkyards, impounded vehicles dealt a rough deal
NEWDELHI: Sumeet Srivastava, 32, whose car was impounded during an anti-encroachment drive in south Delhi’s Qutub Institutional Area on Sunday, spent an entire trying day to figure out where his seized vehicle had been taken.
He found it at last parked in the municipal grounds where its roof had been crushed and the glass shattered by a tree branch that had fallen during the dust storm on the preceding night.
“My car was towed away when I had stepped out for a minute. In the evening I could not get it back because of the storm but by morning it was too late. The municipality has refused to take any responsibility for the damages,” Srivastava said.
Similar incidents of damage to impounded vehicles and seized goods have been reported from several other parts of the city after Sunday’s storm.
In north Delhi’s Keshav Puram, the storage ground near the community centre, three trees fell because of the storm. The store managers said that an entire row of almost six cars have been crushed under the tree.
“There is no way to tell if all the vehicles that came under the fallen tree were abandoned. Some might also be newer cars, but no one has come to claim it since last evening,” said the store in-charge of the Keshav Puram zone under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
The anti-encroachment drive that has been ordered by the Supreme Court and imple- mented by a special task force (STF) has been going on for over 15 days now, and over 1,400 illegally parked vehicles have been impounded by the three municipalities (north, south and east Delhi municipal corporations).
Lakshya Adhikari, a businessman in Kohat Enclave, however, said weather is not the only factor responsible for the damage caused to cars in these storage areas. He said that the enforcement teams mishandle the seized vehicles and these are often recovered with dents, broken headlights and cracked windows.
“I was standing near my car when the team was towing my car. I came running to claim it and I was pushed aside. I waited for two hours before I could get my car back and when I got it, it has a major dent on one of the doors,” Adhikari said. Along with these illegally parked vehicles, action has also been taken against hawkers and street vendors operating without licences.
Officials said if a car has been towed away in a drive, the owner is required to submit copies of registration, identity card, an application identifying the owners and agreeing to pay the stipulated fines.
As per the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, owners of illegally parked vehicles need to pay fine, which is a total of the following categorisation — Rs 3,750 as composition fees, Rs 750 as removal charges, and an additional Rs 1 per kilogram (the weight of the vehicle) per day.
A senior north corporation official said that care is being taken to not cause any damage to the seized vehicles but the mov- ing of the cranes inside the storage grounds and the high volume of vehicles sometimes causes minor dents.
“We have limited space and to accommodate so many cars some of the vehicles are pushed to the sides. This might cause some minor damage,” said the official.