PONDA: The Ponda Muncipal Council (PMC) on Tuesday decided to introduce pay parking in the town from February 2024, at its monthly meeting. While speaking to media, Chairperson Ritesh Naik said the rates for two wheelers will be Rs 5 for the first hour while it will be additional Rs 5 for every subsequent hour. For car parking it will be Rs 10 for first hour and it will be Rs 10 for every subsequent hour. The issue has been discussed with the traffic police, RTO and Deputy Collector, he said.
Naik said the idea to introduce pay parking is to streamline traffic congestion, avoid haphazard parking and prevent the occupation of prime spaces for long hours and ease movement of traffic in the town. Soon there would be demarcation for parking at identified stretches of road.
Naik said at present PMC has identified some spaces in the town where pay parking would be introduce. These include Maruti Temple to old bus stand (Indira Market), Court Building at Tisk-Ponda to upper bazaar road. Before introducing parking system these areas would be notified, tender for pay parking would be invited before giving the contract, sign boards would be displayed, terms and conditions would be framed by studying the pay parking system at Panjim and Curchorem where parking system has already been introduced.
In order to streamline the functioning of motor vehicular traffic, sign boards for two and four wheelers and for parking of rickshaw carriage will be erected.
Parking fees once charged shall be considered valid for any other parking locations within the municipal council jurisdiction for that time slot for the said vehicle. All government vehicles and ambulance shall be exempted from paying parking fees, the Chairperson said.
Meanwhile, the PMC has also decided to cancel the allotment of nine shops at Indira Market, Ponda, citing there has been violations in the auctioning process. In some cases, it was revealed that only two bidders take part in auction with both of them having blood relations and one of them getting the shop. Ritesh Naik said there is violation of law and so the Council also decided to cancel this auction process. The shops were auctioned two years ago. However considering violations in auction process and also noting chief officer’s remark about violation, the Council decided to cancel the auction process of this shop, return their money and conduct re-auctioning of shops.
