Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has issued an order asking different establishments such as commercial buildings, shopping malls, multiplexes, hospitals, apartments and housing projects in the city to stop charging parking fees from visitors to their premises with immediate effect.
The BDA has termed the practice of charging parking fees from visitors as ‘not legal’.
However, many locals told Orissa POST that many malls are still charging heavy parking fees from visitors by terming them as facilitation fees.
Rudra Prasannna Rath said some malls are still charging Rs 30 per hour for four-wheeler and that is why people are parking their vehicles on streets and making things difficult for commuters. The same is also true for Cuttack city, where people park their vehicles on Link road. Parking on the roads leads to traffic snarls, he added.
Piyush Ranjan Rout welcomed the BDA’s direction on parking fee. “The commercial entities should take immediate steps to implement the BDA direction. Vehicles parked inside designated parking places must get safety tag. The BMC should take steps to check illegal parking for betterment of the commuters and common people,” Rout said.
Amartya Bhattacharya too welcomed the BDA direction on parking fee. According to him, the practice of illegal parking fee collection will come to an end only when there is protest from people. “Sometimes, we argue with those who collect parking fees. But they used to claim that parking fee collection is legal and they are authorised to collect it. With this order, it becomes clear that parking fee collection is illegal,” Bhattacharya said.
Meanwhile, the supervisor of a shopping mall here said that they were not collecting parking fee. “This is the facilitation charge which we collect from people who use the premises for parking vehicles. Their vehicles are under supervision of trained personnel and moreover there is no time restriction,” he said.
Housing and Urban Development Department Minister Pratap Jena said special squads will be formed to curb illegal parking along roads near shopping malls.
BDA vice chairman Prem Chandra Chaudhary said “The development authority has directed all property owners to abide by the mandatory off-street parking provisions in the approved building plan and any deviations in the parking provisions shall be restored by the property owners as per the provisions of approved building plan within 30 days from the date of issue of this notice. The shopping malls having their own parking space cannot charge parking fees from customers. They are not allowed to collect fees if the parking spaces are located outside their malls. Only the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will collect the fees at designated sites allotted for parking.”
One caught for illegal parking fee collection
Meanwhile, an enforcement team has caught a youth, Krishna Parida, for collecting parking fees in front on an electronic good shop at Bapuji Nagar. The team seized at least 40 fake parking tickets from Parida. He has tendered an undertaking before the BMC commissioner saying that we will not repeat the mistake.