High costs deflate BMC's parking plans for SoBo

MUMBAI: Finding a parking place in south Mumbai is an arduous task and it's going to stay that way for some more time. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which had decided to build seven multi-storeyed automated underground parking lots to ease traffic and decongest SoBo, has shelved the plan due to an escalation in the cost of the project.
The corporation has been trying to bring down to a third the cost of each parking facility, which was initially estimated at Rs 36 lakh. "But even that seems impossible in the current scenario. As parking is not our immediate concern, the project is not on our radar for the time being," municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar said.
As part of the Rs 444 crore project, a total of seven parking facilities-two each at Crawford Market and Hutatma Chowk and one each near Eros Cinema, Regal Cinema and Jehangir Art Gallery-were to come up in the heart of south Mumbai. These would have doubled the parking capacity in the region to 1,400 from the existing 700.
"At the beginning of the year we had envisaged that the corporation's funds would be spent more prudently. The decision to withhold the construction of the underground parking lots is part of that idea. We have asked our officials to find out a cheaper and feasible alternative to the plan," Kumar said.
The project has had its share of controversies. Last year, the civic standing committee had received an anonymous letter alleging that a consortium represented by the relative of a Shiv Sena leader was favored during the tendering process. The BMC had chosen a consortium of Venue Infrastructure Ltd and German parking systems firm Wohr for the project.
The company was to pocket revenue for 30 years and develop and maintain the lots for three decades. "Thankfully, better sense prevailed before it was too late. The BMC's plan to offer Rs 444 crore to a firm to develop and maintain these lots along with the right to pocket revenue somehow never made any sense to us," Congress corporator Vinod Shekhar said.