Mumbai: BMC to ease parking pain

In a surprisingly thoughtful gesture the civic body has decided to levy just the basic parking charges initially in order to ease people into its ambitious onstreet parking plan on two stretches of road and three areas in the city and suburbs Senior civic officials said the announcement for the implementation of the plan is likely to be made nextweekAlso ReadDeadline passes but BMC still accepting open spaces suggestionsMIDday had reported on the onstreet parking plan on August 7 and 17 The plan proposed by the Mumbai Parking Authority includes two stretches of arterial roads and three areas on a pilot basis in the city and suburbs Once implemented people will no longer be able to park for free on these arterial roads and will either have to park in the public parking lots or in payandpark slots that will be marked on the roadsThree categoriesThe parking policy lists three categories mdash A for highly commercial areas B for commercial as well as residential and C for completely residential areas The charges are the highest for commercial areas and lowest for residential areas Initially the charges levied will only be from the C category even in commercial areas We want to give people time to adjust to the new system But we cannot allow them to park for free either which is why we will charge them nominal rates in the beginning said a civic officialThe plan proposed by the Mumbai Parking Authority includes two stretches of arterial roads and three areas on a pilot basis in the city and suburbs Representation picUnder the C category owners of fourwheelers will have to pay Rs 25 for upto one hour and the charges will increase depending on the number of hours Similarly owners of twowheelers will have to pay R10 for an hour People will also have the option of purchasing monthly passes to park both kinds of vehicles between 8 am and 8 pmAlso ReadGMLR project BMC to purchase compensatory plot for forest departmentCivic officials said that since the tendering process will take time they are appointing contractors who are already managing other public parking lots in the city We have picked experienced contractors to manage the parking slots that will be marked on the streets We will conduct the tendering process next month after which new contractors will be appointed and the parking charges will later be adjusted based on the land use as per the parking policy said a senior civic officialThe areasThe two arterial roads include a 35kmlong stretch of Maharshi Karve Road from Churchgate Station to the Opera House junction and a 57kmlong stretch of SV Road in K West ward from Juhu Airport to the Oshiwara river The areas where the onstreet parking will be introduced on a pilot basis include an area measuring 153 sq km around a stretch of Gokhale Road in Shivaji Park an area measuring 153 sq km around New Link Road in Oshiwara and an area measuring 13 sq km around LBS Road in MulundAlso ReadMumbai Stinky yellow water in taps at Lokhandwala OshiwaraRs 25Charges for cars in the C category for an hourRs 10Charges for bikes in the C category for an hourRs 35Twowheeler charge for over 12hrsRs 80Fourwheeler charge for over 12hrsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates