Work on Gandhi Maidan parking lot to start in July

NEW DELHI: The North Delhi Municipal Corporation will start work on redeveloping the Gandhi Maidan parking lot from the first week of July.

A senior official of the north corporation said the engineering department will take at least one month to finalise the building plan for the eight-storey facility.

During that time, they will demolish the existing structure, including the basement and surface parking.

“Work on demolishing the existing structure will start from July 6 and visitors currently using the facility will be asked to shift to neighbouring Dangal Maidan.we will get approval from the public works department for using the Dangal Maidan parking lot to accommodate our vehicles,” said standing committee chairman Veena Virmani.

To decongest the Chandni Chowk market and end parking problems, the civic agency conceived a project to convert the existing Gandhi Maidan parking into multilevel facility on the Delhi High Court’s direction in 2012.

Due to administrative hurdles and financial crisis, the project could not see light of the day.

Finally in May, the high court took the north corporation to task for sitting over the ₹445crore project for years.

The court pulled up the civic agency for taking the project ‘casually’ and set a deadline of 2020.

“We initiated the tendering process and submitted details before the court. The project has already been approved by the standing committee and will get the nod of the house,” said senior north corporation official.

Spread over 18,500 square metres, the project will have space for 2,400 cars. At present, 600 cars can be parked.

“We are expecting to make the site fully operational within 24 months. But it wouldn’t be a fully automatic parking lot,”said Virmani.

Gandhi Maidan was marked as a green area in the Master Plan of Delhi 2021.

Following the court’s intervention, the land use was changed by the DDA.

Considering the significant rise in the number of the people visiting Chandni Chowk, it was proposed to convert the parking into a multilevel site four years ago.

In the absence of adequate parking space in the area, visitors and shopkeepers leave their vehicles on the road, leading to traffic jams.

IN THE MONTH IT TAKES TO GET CLEARANCE FOR THE NEW PARKING LOT, AUTHORITIES SAID THEY WILL DEMOLISH THE EXISTING STRUCTURE