Government moots tough curbs on illegal parking

New Delhi: A new draft parking policy of the Delhi government has recommended tough measures to curb unauthorised parking in the city and giving enforcement powers to officials of local bodies and the public works department for issuing challans to offenders.

The draft policy has been put up in the public domain for feedback, after which required modifications will be done before seeking approval of the chief minister and the lieutenant governor, said a senior government official.

At present, the Delhi Traffic Police is mandated to take action against unauthorised parking but in order to achieve the “desired” results, all stakeholders needed to act to deal with the problem, it said.

“Parking management should be used as a demand management tool to decrease use of private vehicles and thus reduce the overall demand for parking, and shift travel to public transport, para-transport and non-motorised modes. Sixty per cent of all trips made in Delhi are short ones which can easily be made on these alternate modes,” stated the draft policy.

It calls for a ban on subsidised parking at public places with users paying full cost of parking facility based on land opportunity cost, capital cost, maintenance cost and temporal demand. In order to discourage ownership of multiple cars by one individual, incremental increase in road tax will be considered.

The transport department will prepare a policy to disincentivise purchase of multiple ownership of cars. The necessary amendment will be made in the Delhi Motor Vehicle Taxation Act for prescription of incremental road tax.

The policy noted that the wide enough roads in the city get constricted due to parking of vehicles, thereby affecting the flow of traffic.