State, BMC get 4 weeks to frame parking plan
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court has given the state government and the BMC four weeks to come up with a comprehensive plan to resolve the issue of parking spaces, especially in narrow streets, and to file an affidavit about the same.
A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Abhay Ahuja was hearing a public interest litigation on parking issues in the city. During the course of the hearing on the PIL, advocate Savina Crasto appearing for Tilak Nagar Residents Welfare Association, referred to a fire in 2018 which had started due to a short circuit in the 11th floor apartment of a 20-storey building in Tilak Nagar. Crasto informed the bench that the fire was brought under control but not before five senior citizens perished in it. This was on account of the fire tenders not being able to reach the building due to vehicles parked on both sides of the narrow road, she said.
The Residents’ Welfare Association filed the PIL after its subsequent efforts to resolve the issue of haphazard parking which had considerably narrowed the 20-foot-wide road had failed.
The petition sought a comprehensive parking policy and its implementation to prevent unorganized traffic from causing difficulties for fire engines to approach affected premises.
Crasto further informed the bench that after the 2018 fire traffic authorities had introduced various initiatives like odd day parking and had also declared the lane a no-parking zone, however the residents refused to heed any of these rules.
After hearing the submissions, the bench said that with increasing number of cars in the city, there was a need for designated parking spaces policy and asked the state government and BMC to delineate the
they proposed to take on the issue.
The bench said the authorities also need to identify narrow roads in the city and see how parking spaces could be made available there. “There are so many cars in Mumbai. There are no designated parking spaces for them in the city. Where else will they park? Not everybody can afford a chauffeur,” CJ Datta said directing the state government and BMC to file a comprehensive affidavit on the steps taken to earmark parking spaces in the city.
The BMC has already asked the Parking Authority to formulate a draft policy on parking in Mumbai. This policy is ready and awaiting clearance from Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal.