PANJIM: The Corporation of the City of Panjim’s special meet Friday gave an ‘in-principle’ approval to the contentious pay parking plan for the State capital, with provisions for reviewing the plan after a month.
“The entire plan has got an in-principle approval. The first phase will start as soon as the infrastructure is completed,” commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues told media persons after the meeting.
The plan to decongest and regulate traffic in other parts of the city will include a plan for making streets one way, demarcating pedestrian only areas, and no parking zones.
The corporators resolved that the CCP will begin pay parking initially in four areas – pedestrian walk around and opposite National Theatre, pay parking near Vishal Mega Mart and Junta House, pay parking around the Municipal Market and Inox as well as in front of Café Coffee Day. The CCP is also considering designating the area around 31st January road as no parking zone.
The meeting started off after a delay as there was no current. Mayor Surendra Furtado introduced the pay parking plan for the city and the commissioner explained the plan in detail.
Surprisingly former mayors from across the board — Yatin Parikh from the ruling panel backed by former deputy mayor Rudresh Chodankar and former mayors from the opposition panel Vaidehi Naik and Tony Rodrigues — objected to the plan and highlighted various hurdles in its implementation. They insisted that the plan be only taken up for a trial basis and in a phased manner.
After listening to the objections and discussions, mostly repeated arguments, the corporators agreed to the first phase of implementation rather grudgingly for certain areas for a trial period.
Implementation of pay parking in the city has been effectively sabotaged by corporators for over a decade as Panjimites continue to suffer for shortage of parking space especially due to idle parking. The corporators were arguing whether the CCP had the manpower to implement pay parking and a former mayor insisted throughout the discussion that the footpaths should be repaired first.
The CCP also said that the water pipelines would be replaced.
