NMC’s parking project gets poor response from bidders

Nashik: The Nashik Municipal Corporation's (NMC) has failed to implement the pay-and-park project even after five years due to poor response from bidders.The local civic body proposed pay-and-park facilities at 28 locations across the city, but the project was delayed despite floating tenders four times. The 8 bidders who were in the race for the bids floated for the fourth time last month were disqualified, prompting the civic body to float the tender for the fifth time. The last date for filing the bids is Feb 25. The bids are to be opened the next day on Feb 26.NMC proposed pay-and-park at 28 locations in the city, including 22 on-street parking spaces and 6 off-street parking spaces, to be operated through private agencies or contractors. Most of these locations fall within the busy central areas of Nashik city. These include major commercial markets, institutional clusters, and high-traffic corridors.The civic body believes that introducing a structured, technology-supported parking system in these pockets will significantly improve vehicular movement and reduce haphazard parking. "We are taking efforts to boost the pay-and-park project in the city, but are not receiving a response from private contractors. Now, we floated the bids for the fifth time, and we will go ahead even if we get at least 1 eligible contractor for the project," said NMC officials.However, the lack of parking spaces in the city is causing inconvenience to city residents, as they do not have authorised parking spaces in the busy market areas in central parts of the city."It is difficult to go to the market areas as we have to park at least 1 kilometre away. This is very inconvenient when we have family members with us. Nashik needs parking spaces for the convenience of residents," said Sagar Nerpagare, a city resident.