Of 11L vehicles in city, only 3,440 can get BMC parking
There seems to be no end in sight to the city’s parking woes. A fresh assessment of the available public parking space in BMC’s 113 pay-and-parks has revealed that only 3,440 vehicles can be parked in these.
plots as compared to an estimated 11 lakh vehicles that use the city roads every day.
Though the total car space area, which now stands at 1,03,179 sq-m for all the pay-and-parks, has increased over the last couple of years, the supply of these public parking spaces is less than 1% of the total requirement. This is clearly not enough to meet even the current levels of demand, let alone future projections, officials said.
“The shortfall has resulted in unregulated parking along the roads, further adding to the congestion. In 2007, the traffic police had collected about Rs 18 crore in fines from illegally parked vehicles. To tackle this problem, we have now included these unauthorised parking spaces in our fresh assessment,” said an official of the BMC’s roads and traffic department.
According to BMC estimates, even if a vehicle is stationary or parked for 20 hours a day, it requires at least 30 sq-m of space per vehicle for a conventional type of parking. Simply put, there is a need to provide 450 lakh sq-m or 45 crore sq-ft of parking space across Mumbai. The fresh assessment was carried out by the civic officials after the two years’ lease with private contractors, who manage and maintain these slots, ended this week.
Fresh tenders are now being invited at revised rates. The proposal for a steep hike in parking charges was cleared by the civic improvements committee in October. The charges have been doubled for four wheelers, from Rs 5 to Rs 10 for the first hour. Two-wheelers will have to pay five times more if the proposal comes through (Rs 5 for the first hour, instead of the current Re 1). For both categories, the charges will rise by Rs 5 every two hours.
Recognising the need to provide more spaces, the BMC has already initiated development of multi-level and underground parking lots across the city. It has identified and reserved 150 plots for this purpose.