After enjoying low parking rates for the past 13 years,the city commuters will now have to pay double the rates for parking their vehicles. An option of monthly pass is also on cards for frequent parking commuters. The new parking rates,based on the principles of the National Urban Transport Policy high parking fee should be one of the mechanisms for discouraging the use of personal vehicles,range from Rs 2 to Rs 175. The corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation gave their approval for a nine-month-old proposal for increasing the rates at the Improvement Committee meeting on Friday. For three/four wheelers,the parking rate for an hour will be Rs 10,double the existing Rs 5,and Rs 60 beyond 12 hours. Two-wheelers will have to shell out Re 1 for an hour and Rs 20 beyond 12 hours. Trucks and buses will have to pay Rs 20 for an hour and Rs 175 beyond 12 hours (see box). Mumbai has the lowest parking rates among the leading metropolises of the country. Chennai charges Rs 60 and Rs 15 for three hours car and bike parking while in Bangalore,one has to pay Rs 10 every hour for car and Rs 3 for two-wheeler parking. Monthly passes will be available up to 12 hours,at Rs 1,100 (morning) and Rs 550 (night) for three/four wheelers. Interestingly,there was a change in the tone of political parties on Friday. All the political parties had earlier opposed the revision. Shiv Sena member Manmohan Chonkar,in fact,slammed the civic administration for not proposing the increased rates during the past 13 years. Why did no official bother to increase the parking rates all these years? There is a lot of corruption in parking lots with contractors pocketing the extra money, he said,demanding priority to local contractors of each ward to man the parking spaces. The new parking rates has been fixed for 30 years and they will double every two years. The new parking rates will be uniform for the multi-storeyed lots as well as the on-street ones. Off-street parking will be banned up to 1 km from a multi-storeyed parking lot.
