Chandigarh: Running in losses, city’s first multilevel parking lot to close from today

Talking to Chandigarh Newsline, Mayor Arun Sood said, “The multilevel parking lot would remain out of bounds for some time. We are in the process of floating a tender. We are hopeful that the parking lot will re-open shortly.”

While the MC was incurring a monthly expenditure of Rs 9 lakh for the maintenance of the multilevel parking, the income was only around Rs 1.5 lakh. “We cannot afford to run the parking lot in losses,” said Sood.

To attract companies for managing the parking lot, MC has sought advertisement rights from the UT chief architect. The file is pending with the UT finance secretary for approval. Councillors said that the decision to inaugurate the parking lot in a haste led to this situation.

Congress councillor Pardeep Chhabra, who represents this area, said, “It is a total failure of the mayor. Without any proper planning they went ahead because they were in a hurry to inaugurate the parking. They did not plan in advance the operation and maintenance of the parking lot.”

The civic body was paying Rs 6.20 lakh per month to the company running the parking lot. From the beginning, the project of multilevel parking lot remained in the news for wrong reasons. The decision of the corporation to close two parking lots in Sector 17 — Empire store and Sahib Singh — was opposed by the traders and the authorities were forced to re-open both the parking lots. The move led to a fall in the number of vehicles parked at the multilevel parking. Against an average of 800 vehicles per day, the number of vehicles dropped to around 275.

Can accommodate 931 cars

The Sector 17 underground parking lot has three levels and can accommodate 931 cars. There are two computerised ticket counters at entry and exit points, two ramps for the entry and exit of vehicles. The parking fee for four-wheelers is Rs 5 for first four hours, Rs 5 for every additional hour. The multilevel parking lot has been developed at a cost of Rs 46.62 crore on an area of 4.78 acres. There are eight lifts here and arrangement of e-rickshaws has been made for people.