Hoping for a solution to parking woes in Mumbai? Wait for at least a year. The BMC has extended the tenure of the expert panel that has been entrusted with the task of forming the city’s parking authority, clearly indicating that it won’t come into existence before 2023. Once ready, the parking authority will have sweeping powers with regard to parking management in the city.

It has been six years since the BMC mentioned forming an independent parking authority for the city, in the Development Control and Promotion Regulation-2034. Earlier, the corporation had appointed All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to conduct studies and form the first-of-its-kind parking authority for the city. The BMC spent R3 crore on the efforts between February 2019 and January 2020. The whole exercise got stalled due to the COVID pandemic.