Deccan Chronicle 30.06.2010
GHMC to revive delayed parking plaza project
Hyderabad, June 29: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is planning to revive the multi-crore project to replace the existing old municipal markets with new business centres-cum-multi level parking plazas.
With 22 lakh vehicle population, Greater Hyderabad requires at least 1,000 parking lots. Presently, there are less than 200 parking lots under the control of GHMC.
The multi-level parking plaza project was originally planned to be taken up four years ago when the government issued G.O. Ms No 160, dated April 6, 2006.
There are nearly two dozen old municipal markets in the city and the officials had called for tenders from private agencies to construct parking plazas by replacing old markets at Punjagutta, Ameerpet, Feroz Gandhi Park, Chikkadpally and Begum Bazaar. Though a couple of agencies had come forward to execute the project, they back-tracked subsequently stating there were many long-standing tenants in the municipal markets, who threatened the private contractors of drawing them into long-drawn legal battles, or were demanding excessive reimbursement to hand over their tenant rights along with commercial space.
Now, with pressure mounting on the civic body to provide more parking space, it has hired the services of a private consultant, IL&FS Infrastructure Development Corporation (IL&FS-IDC) to prepare revised Request For Proposals (RFPs) for bidding.
The GHMC additional commissioner, Mr K. Dhanunjaya Reddy, said the focus now was on “temporary” relocation of the existing tenants and vendors.
