Parking fee forced upon despite orders
The zonal commissioners in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) have been turning a blind eye to the instructions given by the principal secretary, municipal administration and urban development, Arvind Kumar.
Kumar had instructed corporation officials to personally monitor the implementation of the government order on no parking. However, the GO is blatantly violated in malls, hospitals and other areas in the city.
Even the corporation’s top notch has been falling prey to the parking mafia.
GO no. 63, dated 20 March, 2018, states that no parking fee is to be collected from any person for the first 30 minutes. The order also states that no parking fee would be collected from a person above 30 minutes and up to one hour if the person produces a bill of any amount in proof of having done shopping in the respective shopping mall or multiplex. For over one hour of parking, a person can produce a bill/movie ticket of an amount which is more than the parking fee and be exempted of the fee. In June, Kumar asked the zonal commissioners to curtail the parking mafia and instructed them to take serious note of violations. Surprisingly, not only the layperson but also top notch from the civic body itself were not spared by the blatant violations of the GO. A senior GHMC official, on condition of anonymity, said that he was forced to pay a parking fee of `30 in MJM complex Julu Khana. “Despite purchasing goods worth `3,000, I was forced to pay parking fee despite being a GHMC employee. Rather than getting into a confrontation with the parking officials, I just paid the fee and nobody was exempted from paying,” he said.
Government hospitals, including the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), Gandhi, Osmania and others are epicentres of the parking mafia loot.
At a few locations, the violators changed the name of paid parking to ‘vehicle maintenance charges’ and the corporation staff remained mute spectators.
Reacting to this, GHMC commissioner, D.S. Lokesh Kumar, said he would look into the issue, adding, corporation cannot enforce everything and currently it has a number of priorities.
The blatant violation of the free parking GO was due to the lack of clarity. GO No. 68 did not mention the parking fee to be charged in hospitals, single screen theatres and others. The GO did not cap the parking fee amount too.