Two fixed parking slots per home as project to unclog Delhi begins
NEW DELHI: Residents in South Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar and Kailash Colony will soon be allotted parking spaces and issued permit stickers for their designated spots as part of a pilot project to decongest the Capital that will soon extend to other localities, officials of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation said on Monday.
A joint team of the municipal corporation and Residents Welfare Associations (RWAS) began earmarking slots for private cars on Sunday after counting the number of vehicles in Lajpat Nagar III and a section of Lajpat Nagar II, said deputy commissioner (remunerative and project cell) Prem Shankar Jha. Each floor of the colony’s houses will be provided two parking slots, he said.
“Those with more than two cars will have to park their extra vehicles at the paid parking spots or make their own arrangement. If vehicles are not parked in the earmarked spaces, they will be towed by the municipal department or the traffic police,” another senior civic agency officer said on the condition of anonymity. The number of spaces allotted to each house may vary in other areas the project covers in the future, the official said.
The parking slots, however, may not necessarily be assigned close to the car owner’s house. “The RWA with the coordination from civic officials will issue a parking sticker for each resident’s vehicle, with the parking slot details. The parking slot may or may not be in front of the resident’s house. No extra vehicles will be allowed,” said Ashwani Marwah, joint secretary of the Lajpat Nagar Market Association.
Jha said a survey conducted jointly with resident and market welfare associations revealed that there were 1,744 flats in Lajpat Nagar III and Lajpat Nagar II C-block, which had 3,640 vehicles. It found 200 vehicles parked on the main road outside the residential areas and in the market.
The project is part of Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal’s Park- ing Management Area Plan (PMAP), which was launched early this year to decongest residential colonies across the city. Delhi’s vehicular traffic is rising at an alarming rate, with about 3.6 million private cars running on the Capital’s streets last year.