The Hindu 19.04.2013
Municipal corporation leaders meet L-G over parking fee hike
Leaders of all the three municipal corporations of Delhi told Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna on Thursday that they would not allow increase in parking fee.
The Lieutenant-Governor had recently approved of new parking rates that had been proposed by a special task force appointed by the Delhi High Court.
Informing the media about what transpired at the meeting, North Delhi Municipal Corporation Standing Committee chairman Ram Kishan Singhal said: “We made it clear that there would be no hike in parking rates. This is our party’s decision and we will completely go by it. I don’t believe that raising the parking fee would in any way discourage people from buying more cars and switch over to public transport. There are 70 lakh registered vehicles in Delhi. We can’t just ban them,” Mr. Singhal said.
“Instead, increasing the tax on purchase of every new vehicle was a much better idea, which I have been proposing for a long time. Then we can also put a tax on thousands of cars coming to Delhi on a daily basis,” he added.
On the response of the Lieutenant-Governor to the refusal to raise the parking fee, Mr. Singhal said: “He is not fully convinced yet, but I am confident that we will finally convince him and make him see our perspective.”
During their interaction with the Lieutenant-Governor, who is also Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, the corporation leaders opposed the decision of the Delhi Government to include farmhouses under the jurisdiction of the DDA developmental area and asked him to regularise these farmhouses under the jurisdiction of the respective corporation.
Mr. Singhal said the corporation leaders suggested to the Lieutenant-Governor that they can take control of the issue of cleaning if provided with a budget. “The issue of drains alongside roads maintained by the Public Works Department was also raised during our meeting and we told the Lieutenant-Governor that these drains have not been maintained and cleaned and this will create a huge problem during the monsoon,” he said, adding that without the budget for their cleaning they would not be able to maintain them.
