Parking in South Delhi likely to cost more

Though there was no increase in property tax, the SDMC budget for the next fiscal unveiled a new model for collection of taxes to bring in those residents under the property tax net who were not paying taxes.

During his budget speech, SDMC Commissioner Manish Gupta said the civic body proposes to focus on multi-level and commercial parking rather than on surface parking which is putting pressure on traffic.

"Due to parking on roads, traffic problems have arisen. We need to discourage surface parking," he said and announced a new slab for parking slots.

The new parking lots will be divided into three categories -- A) Premium surface parking lots like main markets, Lajpat Nagar, Defence Colony etc. B) Surface parking lots other than those mentioned in Category A. C) Multi-level parking, automatic parking and underground parking.

"To reduce problems on roads due to parking, we propose to increase the parking rates for vehicles parked for long hours in Category A and B. This is to discourage parking for long hours. This will help in more people getting chance for parking," he said.

For parking a car in Category A area for one hour, Rs 10 has to be paid and for two hours the rate will be Rs 20. For parking for six hours, the rate will be Rs 50 and Rs 10 for every hour after six hours.

Proposing modernisation of parking system, Gupta said the civic body plans to introduce hand held computerised billing for parking lots. "We are also planning to integrate this hand held billing system with Metro cards," he said.

"If we have the computerised system, then contractors cannot overcharge you," he said. (More)