Metro parking fares will be hiked soon

NEWDELHI: Fares of Delhi Metro’s parking lots will be hiked soon. With non-Metro commuters reportedly occupying most of the parking space at stations, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is planning to provide parking incentives to its smart card users.

About 74 of the 96 parking lots at Metro stations remain completely packed. But this high rate of occupancy is no good news for the DMRC as only about 15 of these facilities see a 100% usage by Metro commuters.

In a bid to ward off non-Metro commuters from using these spaces, the Delhi Metro is going to revise its parking fares which is nominal compared to other agencies. “We are now thinking of changing our policy to make it at par with local agencies like the municipal corporations. The fares will be increased soon,” DMRC managing director Mangu Singh said.

He said that the work on smart card entry to parking facilities has been expedited. “Metro smart card users will get a benefit for parking. The modalities are being worked out,” Singh said.

When compared with the fare chart of civic agencies, that of DMRC’s is the lowest. The DMRC charges ₹20 for cars to be parked up to 6 hours, ₹30 for up to 12 hours and ₹40 for more than 12 hours. On the other hand, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) charges its vehicles ₹20 per hour for the first five hours, and a flat rate of ₹100 for the whole day. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation has similar rates while North and East civic bodies charge ₹20 for the first hour and consecutively ₹10 each hour to a maximum of ₹200 for the whole day.

“Providing parking is mainly the responsibility of civic bodies, yet we provide the facility and for the sake of our commuters we keep the parking rates very low. So even if there is parking available nearby, people still park in our slots. People from nearby housing societies park in our facility for their personal use,” a metro official explained.

Parking fares were last revised in 2013.