No solution for parking in South Mumbai: BMC relies on parking authority

An effort to make additional parking space available in the southern part of the city as a pilot project under the new parking policy could not bring the desired results. Thus, parking woes continue to haunt people in Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Marine Drive and Fort.

After the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) received flak for not managing on-street as well as off-street vehicle parking efficiently, it set up the 'Mumbai Parking Authority' (MPA) as mentioned in the Development Plan (DP) 2034. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country where any civic body has set up an authority to manage parking in a city.

The DP mentions that there needs to be a regulation to reasonably constrict parking in public places. The parking authority will be vested with the responsibilities of overseeing parking arrangements in the city and managing the parking areas.

Setting up the parking authority is a long-term process and involves four different agencies— the Mumbai Traffic Police, non-governmental organisations, the Regional Transport Office and the BMC. There are 15 members in the MPA who will conduct a detailed survey of all the parking lots in the city in coordination with civic officials.

"The MPA will create a data base of all on-street and off-street parking areas across the city. This will help BMC to manage the parking chaos more scientifically," said Harshad Kale, deputy municipal commissioner of Zine I of BMC.

Earlier, the BMC had designated some roads to be used for parking during the night under the residential parking policy. Such parking lots can be bought by the society. This scheme was introduced in the A ward of BMC as a pilot project.

The BMC's A ward also received 36 applications for 220 parking lots under the residential parking scheme. Despite permits from the traffic department, societies did not show much interest in on-street parking. Only six societies showed interest in it.

Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the A ward said that the timings did not suit many and hence, societies did not opt for it. As per the proposal, vehicles can be parked outside the society building between 8pm and 8am. "There was no clarity on the consequences if vehicles were found parked along the road even after 8 am," an official from the A ward said.

There are 54 parking lots in which around 1,665 cars can be parked across Cuffe Parade, Colaba, Marine Drive and Fort under the A ward. "Due to the ongoing Metro work, some of the parking spaces have been barricaded," added Dighavkar.