Delhiites may soon have to pay for parking outside their homes

Delhi government in consultation with Lieutenant Governor of the state has proposed a draft policy which seeks to introduce charges for parking in residential areas.

A four-member committee formed the state government to prepare a parking policy has come out with the draft 'Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Rules, 2017'.

"The civic agencies will consult RWAs (residents welfare associations) before deciding the parking charges and mode of management of parking in residential areas including outsourcing of the collection of parking fees," the draft says.

City’s civic agencies will fix a Base Parking Fee which will be revised annually and the parking charges will be decided on the basis of it. As per the proposal, on-street parking for the first hour would be priced at least twice of off-street and will increase exponentially with duration to discourage long periods of on-street parking.

"Dynamic pricing mechanisms such as peak and off-peak fees and exponential increase per hour of use would be used to moderate parking demand."

LG Anil Baijal discussed the proposal with Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot and officials of the department in a meeting and directed them to make the draft public for suggestions and feedback.

"We will make the draft of the policy public in the next 14-15 days. Once made public, people can give suggestions for around 30 days," a senior government official said. There will also be a provision for booking vehicles with a challan even by civil authority officials. As of now, only Traffic police is authorised to do so.

The lack of parking space is a perennial problem in Delhi and the habits of Delhiites to park their vehicles on road add to the already congested roads of the city.

The chaos is enhanced as more number of vehicles enter daily in Delhi than the number of vehicles registered every year. According to a study by Centre for Science and Environment, around six lakhs vehicle enter every day in Delhi. The Economic Survey of Delhi for the year 2014-15 shows 5.69 lakh total vehicles were registered that year in the city. And, not to forget over a crore vehicles which are already registered in the city.

Finding a parking space for this many vehicles is a major problem. Various steps taken in the past have failed to address the problem. Expectedly, the response to this draft will be keenly watched as it directly affects the space outside people’s home.

(With inputs from PTI)