‘Ask buyer about parking space while registering vehicle’

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday asked the Centre whether it can be made mandatory for a buyer seeking registration of a new vehicle to show that he has parking space for the same.

The court expressed concern over increasing traffic, especially near hospitals, and asked the authorities to take steps to ensure that there was no obstacle for citizens or ambulances to reach hospitals. The judges also asked the government to consider providing dedicated lanes for ambulances to ply.

The court suggested this while hearing a PIL about parking in the city. The court also suggested that the government consider introducing single-ticket facility which could be used for all public transport including buses, trains and the metro.

A division bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Girish Kulkarni, while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Janhit Manch raising issues of parking in the city, observed that the time had come for the government to think seriously about resolving the issue of parking.

During the hearing, Justice Patil said that long back the court had asked an officer, who registered vehicles, whether they asked owners what kind of parking facilities they had when registering their vehicles. At the time, the officer said that they did not have powers to ask such questions. According to the court, if the government made it mandatory for people coming for vehicle registration to first disclose details about their parking space, there was a chance to curb the problem.

Advocate Advait Sethna, counsel for the Union government, told the court that the government was drafting a comprehensive policy on the issue of parking and all aspects were being considered.Senior counsel Anil Sakhre on behalf of BMC told the court that the draft development control rules (DCR) had proposed ‘parking authority’ which would exclusively regulate traffic.