Vehicle owners can breathe easy as the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) has passed an order making it mandatory for business establishments such as malls to stop collecting parking fee. The order applies even to hospitals which charge parking fee to attendants of patients and visitors.

Acting on complaints from the public about some commercial establishments collecting “exorbitant” parking fee, particularly some malls, the Standing Committee on Town Planning of MCC has proposed to make parking of vehicles free in basements in those establishments.

Pople used to park their vehicles along the side of the roads around such places to avoid paying a parking fee, causing traffic menace. This was another reason for proposing free parking.

Standing Committee president Nandeesh Pretham said a resolution on ending parking fee was passed by the committee on March 6 this year and the council subsequently passed a resolution on May 5, backing the proposal. MCC Commissioner G. Jagadeesha passed an order in this regard on November 20 to provide free parking (if any fee was being charged now) to the visitors with immediate effect.

Mr. Preetham, who had convened a meeting of the committee here on Monday, said the order has come into effect and all the establishments have to obey the diktat. “Whichever commercial establishment has taken building licences from the MCC, they are bound to obey the rule. The MCC can act against such establishments if they flout the order,” he said, adding that basements are not meant for trade if the purpose for which the licence was taken was for providing parking.

At places in Ittigegud near Mysore Racecourse, police have put up no-parking signs to avoid traffic snarls as visitors to a mall used to park their vehicles around the place to avoid paying a parking fee.

There have been instances of police slapping fines on the vehicle owners for flouting the no-parking rule.

Mr. Preetham said he will also ensure that commercial establishments which have converted their basements into “trade” centres change them to “parking lots” if permission had been taken for the purpose.

The city, which is already water deficient, will have a crisis on its hands in less than two decades with a shortfall of approximately 2,000 million litres per day (MLD) of potable and non-potable water for domestic and industrial use.

In its Draft Revised Master Plan 2031, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has reduced the projected shortfall to around 850 MLD by making a case for a Dual Pipeline System, which allows for water to be recycled, and conservation. It also provides another solution: divert water from Linganamakki dam across the Sharavathi in Shivamogga district, over 430 km away, as proposed by the Tyagaraja Committee. However, this has been strongly contested by water conservation experts and farmers. According to water conservationists, the BDA’s projections are on the conservative side. “The water woes of the city in 2031, with over 20.03 million people, will be much worse than what the draft RMP 2031 predicts,” said S. Vishwanath, a water conservation expert. While for most megacities, the per capita water demand is 200 LPCD (multiplied by the total population), which includes industrial water demand as well, the draft RMP considers 135 LPCD for domestic (multiplied by the total population) and 90 LPCD (multiplied by the working population, which is taken as 60% of the total population) for non-domestic — estimates that will derail projects. The plan does not mention Rain Water Harvesting (RWH), a major lacuna, even as the BWSSB has begun aggressively pursuing RWH even for old buildings to reduce the per capita demand.

The draft plan relies on dual piping, for all new houses and the future population, through which recycled water will be supplied for all non-potable purposes. The goal is to harness 865 MLD of recycled water, and the excess can be used to recharge lakes and thereby ground water levels. With these measures, the BDA predicts that the shortfall will be reduced from about 2,000 MLD to 850 MLD, which can be met from the ground water table. But the city’s reliance on ground water will be 27% more than what it is today.

No mention of STP

Even as the draft plan heavily relies on recycled water for demand reduction, it is silent on the sewerage network and Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) infrastructure needed by 2031. The draft plan simply recommends an expansion of BWSSB services for the entire Bengaluru Metropolitan Area (BMA).