No parking on arterial roads, but only at designated spots

Soon, parking vehicles on the arterial roads of the City’s central business district (CBD) may be a costly affair. By restricting the parking to designated locations and fixing fees for the same, the government proposes to decongest the major thoroughfares, thereby eliminating traffic bottlenecks. The Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) is preparing a parking action plan for the CBD in association with BBMP. To begin with, parking will be banned on the arterial roads of the City.

New Delhi: After missing several deadlines, the New Delhi Municipal Council’s multilevel parking lot at Baba Kharak Singh (BKS) Marg was opened to public on Tuesday evening. During the trial run, DLF— the private concessionaire responsible for the construction and operation of the parking lot — has decided to provide parking free of cost. The parking was made operational after NDMC gave the completion certificate on Monday.

New Delhi: Continuing uncertainty over the fate of numerous parking projects has become a cause of concern for not only vehicle users but also the city’s planners. While there are plans to raise parking fees in the city, only one of the 41 multi-level parking projects conceived by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been made operational so far, and work on 24 is yet to start.

Many of the Capital’s multi-level and automated parking projects are still in early stages of construction, despite crossing their deadlines long ago. Of 15 automated multi-level parking projects, the one in GK-II was dropped. Till date, only the Kamla Nagar Market project has seen significant progress. It is 80 per cent complete. The 13 other projects are still stuck in various initial stages. The parking projects at South Extension-I and II are yet to begin as soil testing has been going on for the past one year.

Six automated parking facilities based on public-private partnerships planned in various parts of South Delhi are yet to see the light of day. Work has not started on the facilities in Greater Kailash-1, Lajpat Nagar, Defence Colony, South Extension – I and II, Kamla Nagar and Rani Bagh despite tenders for some of these facilities being called as early as 2007.

The School of Management Studies, CUSAT, has submitted the interim report on parking at Metro stations to Kochi Metro Rail Ltd.

The report suggests that the need of parking facility is more in the suburban areas and it decreases towards the inner parts of the city. The final report on the same will be submitted in 3 to 4 weeks' time.

In a move that aims at providing more land for construction and increased sops to builders in the ecologically sensitive Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) areas, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has asked the state government to allow the new relaxed building norms to be applicable in such areas. As per existing rules, the Floor Space Index (FSI) that determines the extent of construction that can be carried out on a plot is restricted in CRZ areas.

The policy will include increasing the floor space index & easing of density norms

An affordable housing policy is in the works to attract developers and to meet the shortage of around 25 million houses in the country. The Union Budget had announced access to external commercial borrowing (ECB) for affordable housing but the industry wasn't excited due to low margins in this category. Now, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (Mhupa) is in the process of framing an affordable housing policy, expected to be finalised in two months.

Angry Over South Commissioner’s Remark; Say No Progress On Parking In Markets. A day after South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s commissioner Manish Gupta said the civic agency was not bound to provide parking facilities in all the markets despite collecting parking and conversion charges, city traders said they felt cheated. They also demanded that the charges collected from them be returned.

A day after the municipal commissioners announced that parking charges will be hiked in the city, the Mayors and the BJP leaders opposed the decision on Thursday. During a courtesy call to Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna, the three Mayors — Meera Aggarwal of North, Savita Gupta of South and Annapurna Mishra of East — along with Leaders of the House and chairmen of Standing Committees objected to the proposal to increase parking charges.