Traffic police see red over BBMP's new parking project

BENGALURU: The BBMP's new parking policy, which focuses on public-private partnership, is expected to face resistance from Bengaluru traffic police. The move, which will be on the lines of New Delhi's parking policy, is looking at increasing the number of parking lots in the

Central Business District

.

The initial plans are to give financial benefits like large concessions in property tax and leniency in floor area ratio to those providing space or constructing parking lots.

Bengaluru traffic police are not very happy though. According to the top brass, augmenting parking facilities by any scale will not be enough to match the growing vehicular population in the city. Police don't want to support any project which incentivizes movement of private vehicles. Instead, they want a parking policy that will help reduce use of private vehicles by levying hefty parking fee.

Though the BBMP is yet to share the final draft of the parking policy, Bengaluru police say they have communicated to the civic body at several coordination meetings that they want the Palike to streamline the existing parking facilities in public spaces. “There should not be any free parking in the city and parking charges on the road should be as high as in malls,“ said R Hitendra, additional commissioner of police, traffic.

No incentives should be given to those parking in public places and if there's any incentive, it should be for the mass transport projects.Parking on roads reduces the carriageway width on most city roads. While the city cries foul about traffic jams, it continues to take a large portion of the road for parking, he added.

Traffic police had intensified action against illegal parking, tripling the towing charges and adding more towing vehicles but the deterrence is yet to make an impact. “Unless the charges are as high as Rs 200 for parking, people won't leave their private vehicles at home and take public transport,“ Hitendra pointed out.

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