New Delhi: Close to four years after a dedicated parking policy was notified for the national capital, its implementation on-ground remains minimal, ThePrint has found.
The AAP-led Delhi government had notified the parking policy, titled ‘Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, 2019’, in September 2019, after intervention from the Supreme Court.
The apex court had noted in a 2019 order that parking was one of the most serious problems in Delhi, adding that the “social fabric of neighbourhoods is being torn asunder because of fights over this most petty issue of parking of vehicles”.
The Delhi parking policy, available on the Delhi transport department’s website, aimed to regularise parking in residential and market areas, and recommended, among other things, dynamic pricing for parking in peak and non-peak hours.
Among its core components was the drafting of a Parking Management Area Plan (PMAP) by urban local bodies that was to be based on an area-wise survey to identify parking requirements.
The parking policy noted that parking plans “shall be prepared within four months” of its notification.
But four years on, many of the plans remain on paper, said officials at the the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
To start with, the erstwhile South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) — which has now been merged into the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) — had drafted 16 PMAPs for areas such as Lajpat Nagar, Green Park Extension, Kailash Colony, Nizamuddin Basti and Malviya Nagar.
But only four such plans were notified by the Delhi government’s transport department, which is the nodal agency for the same, and only two have been implemented till date, in the city’s Lajpat Nagar area, said the officials.
“The remaining two PMAPs, for Neeti Bagh and Gulmohar Park areas, are yet to be implemented because some issues have cropped up with the Resident Welfare Associations in these areas. They say they were not consulted during the drafting of these plans,” a senior MCD official told ThePrint.
While the remaining PMAPs are yet to receive clearance from the transport department, according to senior MCD officials, the civic body is yet to commence the survey for PMAPs in areas under the jurisdiction of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation.
On the status of PMAPs for areas under the erstwhile North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the senior MCD officials told ThePrint that they were “unsure”.
A second senior MCD official told ThePrint that the surveys for the existing PMAPs were completed shortly before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that the on-ground requirements in the then-surveyed areas may have changed.
“The worry is that the proposed solutions in these plans might have become irrelevant. And if it is so, then the surveys will have to be conducted afresh,” he said, adding that fresh surveys were being conducted in two areas which were not previously covered.
When asked for a response over the observations raised in connection with the PMAPs, a senior Delhi transport department official said “this will be taken up after the G20 Summit (scheduled for September this year)”.
Speaking to ThePrint, Delhi Development Authority’s former commissioner (planning), A.K. Jain, said the national capital’s parking situation was a complete mess, simply because “nobody visualised that this could become such a big problem”.
“Delhi has over one crore vehicles [according to government data], and each family in this owns at least one vehicle. The issue is that people bought multiple vehicles without even owning a parking space. And quite evidently, they started parking on the streets and roads, and the roads are not private property,” he said.
ThePrint has reached Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot for comment on the gaps in implementation of the parking policy, this article will updated if and when a response is received. ThePrint has also reached MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti for comment over email. The report will be updated once a response is received.
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‘Sweeping changes required’
According to MCD officials, preparing a PMAP involves demarcation of all types of parking spaces for on-street, off-street and multi-level parking facilities, and demarcating spaces for vending zones, among other things.
The plans also require to be prepared in consultation with local stakeholders, such as resident welfare associations, and urban planners. Further, the idea is to provide decongestion, parking spaces and sufficient right of way for fire tenders, police vehicles and ambulances.
A third senior MCD official told ThePrint that implementing parking solutions would require sweeping changes, starting from removing “any form of encroachments” that include unauthorised constructions.
“We have been able to implement some solutions from the policy, such as increased parking rates for surface-level parkings if a vehicle is parked for extended hours. But the larger problem is that many people do not want to pay for parking, especially for short durations. So, these people end up parking in residential areas or already congested areas,” the official claimed.
According to the PMAP drafted for Malviya Nagar area — which is yet to be approved by the transport department — encroachments in service lanes, dumped vehicles, mechanics working on roads and vehicles parked on footpaths were highlighted as the primary causes behind parking trouble in the area. ThePrint has seen the draft PMAP available on the MCD website.
To be precise, in the 83 blocks that were surveyed in the area, 146 two-wheeler vehicles and 91 four-wheeler vehicles were found dumped. Further, over 854 cars were found to be parked in common spaces, and a total of 3,986 cars were found to be parked outside homes, MCD officials said.
The total parking supply stood at 3,411, while there was no parking space for 575 cars.
“The approval for the PMAPs lie in the hands of the Delhi government. But even if they receive the final nod, we will have to assess the on-ground situation and see whether the solutions are still implementable,” the second senior MCD official said.
DDA’s Jain, recalling the Master Plan for Delhi 2021, noted that there was ample consultation over the subject of Delhi’s parking troubles.
“There are more layers to this issue,” he said. “One is that residents would not want solutions that would require sweeping changes and result in them having to pay. The second is the removal of encroachments, for which civic agencies face a lot of public resistance and even politicians come out to support the latter.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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