The Times of India        19.03.2014

10 major roads to become 'no parking' zones soon

GURGAON: To ease prominent traffic bottlenecks in the city, the municipal corporation along with traffic police plans to declare over 10 arterial roads as 'red zones', where parking vehicles will not be allowed. The authorities however have not bothered to come up with an alternative parking solution.

"These are core traffic areas and should be 'no-parking' zones. I have already spoken to the police commissioner and we have decided to declare 10-15 odd city roads as 'red zones'. While we have already identified a couple of roads such as the one connecting Sadar Bazaar to the bus terminal, Jail Road and Atul Kataria Chowk, we will zero in on more roads soon. Most of the roads will be in old city and some in new Gurgaon," said MCG commissioner Praveen Kumar. "The concept is popular in England and many other countries. The 'red zones' will have signboards painted in red and CCTVs to monitor any violation, following which our enforcement team will take necessary action," Kumar said.

Kumar however did not say much about the parking alternatives. "This is to discourage people from parking anywhere they like. They will have to park elsewhere and walk. The proposed multi-level parking lots will take at least another year to get ready."

"Developed countries have excellent public transport system and adequate parking lots but in Gurgaon people are forced to use their vehicles. The municipal corporation must first provide efficient public transport and then come up with such ideas," said Jagat Singh, a Sector 15 resident.

The Hindu       28.02.2014

Delhi civic body to tax commercial vehicles on Gurgaon Expressway

Akanksha Jain

The Delhi High Court has paved the way for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to collect entry tax from commercial vehicles entering Delhi from the Rajokri toll plaza at 24 km milestone on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. The control of the expressway was recently taken over by the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), the lead financer of the project, putting an end to a long-drawn legal tussle.

A Bench of Justice Manmohan Singh took on record the settlement arrived at between the SDMC and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for allowing the civic body to collect the entry tax. It said the Haryana Police will provide assistance for the same. The Court ordered that “the parties to the settlement shall be bound by the terms and conditions arrived at in the meeting held between the NHAI and the SDMC on February 25”.

The Bench passed the order on a petition filed by the SDMC seeking direction to restrain the Delhi Government, the NHAI and others from preventing it from collecting toll tax from Rajokri toll plaza by using the existing infrastructure and its own manpower.

The High Court was on Wednesday informed that in compliance with its February 21 order, a joint meeting was held between the NHAI and the Delhi Municipal Corporation on February 25 and the dispute resolved. Both parties placed the minutes of the meeting before the court, which said: “The Haryana Police to give the assistance and to do the needful in order to implement the minutes of the meeting.”

The parties have agreed that the NHAI will allow the SDMC to collect entry tax from commercial vehicles in six toll lanes located on extreme left side on Jaipur-Delhi bound carriageway and also on split plaza booths.

They also agreed that the “islands between the toll lands of the abandoned toll plaza will remain as it is for the time being and further improvements will be taken up to alert the traffic by way of providing traffic bollards on the nosing of the island”.