The Indian Express   24.08.2012

Civic body moots proposal to levy pay and park charges from vehicles

Two years after the pay and park proposal of the PMC came a cropper, the civic body has once again floated a proposal to charge parking fees from two and four-wheelers at major junctions in the city.

Elected representatives from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had cancelled the initiative of charging parking fees, pay and park, from two-wheelers two years ago. But now the civic administration has cited the demand for levying parking fees as requested by the traffic police.

It has been proposed that parking fee for two-wheelers would be free for first half an hour, after which Rs 2 will be charged for vehicles parked for more than half an hour, but less than an hour.

The parking fee from the second hour would be Rs 3 per hour for two-wheelers, and for four wheelers, it would be Rs 5 per hour.

The administration pointed out that the increasing number of vehicles and insufficient parking facilities in the buildings in the central part of city have led to parking of vehicles on roads.

“There is a need to make the road available for traffic more than for parking of vehicles. The large number of vehicles being parked on city roads are adding to the traffic chaos and accidents. Thus, it is necessary to discourage citizens from using personal vehicle by introducing parking fees,” the proposal said.

The elected representatives had rejected the proposal in the past saying that the civic body had failed to provide an efficient public transport system to its citizens and was instead trying to put additional burden by charging parking fees from private vehicles.