The long pending and much needed city pay parking project seems to be a distant dream, with the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) finding a series of hurdles in the way of its implementation. After initial opposition by the then BJP councilors and low quotation by bidders, this time the project sees an obstacle in the form of ‘charges applicable for pay parking’.
For the fourth time since August 2014, the Corporation has invited bids for implementation of the pay parking system, an attempt by the CCP to exercise control over the haphazard parking situation in the city. The process to implement the pay-parking system in the city began on August 8, 2014, when the corporation, under leadership of then Mayor Surendra Furatdo (Mayor at present too) approached the North Goa district collector to notify 18 roads in the core business area as pay-parking zones.
Discussions on pay-parking have been on since as early as 2012 during the tenure of Vaidhei Naik as Mayor. The proposal was approved by the CCP on January 24, 2013, to approach the North Goa district collector to notify certain roads.
The 18 places for pay-parking include 18 June road, church square, Pandurang Pisurlekar, Dr R S Road, T B Cunha Road, Menezes Braganza Road, Dr Govind Vaidhya Road, Bhosle Square, Swami Vivekananda Road, A B road and other small lanes.
“The sole purpose of the pay parking concept is to defeat the idea of long parking. We don’t want to just generate revenue but also want to develop discipline amongst the commuters,” Mayor Furtado told Herald.
Earlier this month, the Corporation decided to invite fresh bids for pay parking, after the Mayor, ruling councilors and their mentor St Cruz MLA Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, expressed complete displeasure over the rates quoted in the bids. As per the old bids, vehicles would be charged Rs 4 and 10, for the first four hours, Rs 8 to Rs 15 for four hours to 12 hours and Rs 10 and Rs 20 for vehicles parked above 12 hours for two wheelers and four wheelers respectively.
“The councillors were not happy with the rates, as they feel that by charging just Rs 4and Rs 10 for four hours, we are encouraging commuters to park their vehicles for long hours at meagre rates,” Furtado said adding, “Currently we are working on new rates where Rs 20 per hour would be charged and Rs 10 for the subsequent hour.”
CCP intends to generate revenue of around Rs four to five crore annually through pay parking.
The first time the bids were invited for pay-parking, the councillors developed cold feet and backtracked on the proposal. The second time around, CCP had received bids from two interested parties, but, the bids quoted were lower than what the corporation was expecting, prompting former Mayor Shubham Chodankar to issue orders for the contract to be re-tendered. The third time, the BJP councilors approached the State government with a request not to implement the pay parking as the modalities were not clear and the residents were not happy with the project.
“The city is desperately crying out for regulation of its traffic which is only worsening day-by-day. Just like how the one way traffic proposal has been widely accepted by locals, the pay parking would also become routine once implemented,” Pundalik Prabhu, a resident, said.
The Audit Report for the recently concluded financial year, has pulled up the corporation for losing out a huge amount of revenue by non-implementation of pay parking.
