The Indian Express 04.01.2014
Ferozepur road parking: 3-member panel formed to re-auction all lots
At a time when four out of 13 parking lots on Ferozepur road formed following the Punjab and Haryana High Court orders have still not been auctioned, the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation is all set to re-auction all the 13 parking lots. A three-member committee was formed in this regard on Friday.
MC Commissioner Rahul Tewari along with additional commissioner Isha Kalia and Davinder Singh, head of tehbazaari wing, inspected all parking lots along with one at Feroze Gandhi market late on Friday and issued challans to the vehicles parked in service lanes.
Talking to Newsline, Kalia said that "continuous complaints from people like overcharging and misbehaviour by contractors compelled MC to go for re-auctioning".
"We have got the approval from F&CC for the re-auction and now a three-member committee has been formed comprising Davinder Singh, A S Sekhon (additional commissioners) and assistant town planner Rajinder Sharma who will decide new reserve prices. We are hoping to float new tenders by next week," said Kalia, adding that "till the time re-auction is done, old ones will continue the work to maintain the flow of traffic".
The reserve prices of parking lots are expected to go down even after the MC had already slashed prices by 50% after successive failed auctions. "Contractors too have some issues and they will be rederessed," said Kalia.
On Friday, Tewari inspected the parking lots and issued challans to the vehicles parked in tow-away zones, service lanes and no-parking zones.
Three cars were towed away on the orders of Tewari by the tehbazaari team and the rest were issued challans. The next hearing on Ferozepur road parking issue in the High Court is on January 15.
The generator and car of the owner of N S Motors, Happy, was towed away by the inspection team. "They had displayed all their new Scooties in service lane along with a car and a generator. Therefore, we towed them away," said Kalia.
However, Happy termed the move "completely unfair". "There were so many other shopkeepers which parked their vehicles in service lane but why only ours were towed away?" he asked.
