PCMC to work with traffic police for new parking policy

Pune: The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has planned to collaborate with the traffic police to introduce a new parking policy after several failed attempts.
The civic officials said the pay and park policy will be implemented only after the Pimpri Chinchwad traffic police department starts towing vehicles from no parking zones to ensure success of the initiative.
In July, the state govt approved the towing van project for the city on a design, build, operate and maintain (DBOM) contract.
Bapu Bangar, DCP traffic of Pimpri Chinchwad Police, said, "The tendering process for the towing van project was already completed. Some technical aspects like signing an agreement with the contractor were pending and we were hoping to complete the remaining process within a month to start taking action."
At present, the traffic police only take action against the vehicles in no parking zones if there is a driver sitting inside the vehicle.
A senior PCMC official said they were coordinating with the traffic police to implement the new parking policy and a new vendor was almost finalized. "However, to make it successful, the action of towing vehicles should simultaneously start by the traffic police," he said.
He further added that last time the parking spots were finalized based on observations by the civic officials, but "Now we were also seeking feedback from citizens and based on their feedback, the parking spots would be finalized. Besides, our teams are also doing surveys to study several areas where parking facilities were needed," he added.
In Feb, the civic body had also proposed to decentralise the work and it was suggested that instead of the engineering department, the zonal offices of PCMC should be allotted the work for the implementation of the parking policy. However, that failed, and finally, in May this year, the municipal corporation terminated the project.
Earlier in 2021, the civic body had introduced the pay and park facility at 40 out of 58 proposed spots across the city, and a private vendor was given the contract to implement it. However, he suffered losses due to the Covid-19. The citizens were not opting for the paid parking as the traffic police were not towing away vehicles from no parking zones as they had no permission from the state govt. The civic body had to float a separate tender on its own to tow away vehicles from no parking zones, but that too did not work.