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Chandigarh: 50% dip in revenue after MC takes over parking lots
Parking lots in Chandigarh are divided into two zones – 32 in Zone 1 and 57 in Zone 2. In 2020, the MCC had auctioned both zones for three years for around ₹10 crore annually. Zone 1 was managed by contractor Ram Sunder, while Phase-2 was managed by Paschatya Entertainment.
After the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh (MCC) took over the operations of parking lots in the city following the termination of contractors involved in the alleged multi-crore scam, the revenue of the civic body dipped drastically by about 50%.
Parking lots in the city are divided into two zones – 32 in Zone 1 and 57 in Zone 2. In 2020, the MCC had auctioned both zones for three years for around ₹10 crore annually. Zone 1 was managed by contractor Ram Sunder, while Phase-2 was managed by Paschatya Entertainment.
The contract of both zones expired on January 30 this year after an alleged multi-crore parking scam unfolded involving contractor Anil Kumar Sharma of Paschatya Entertainment Private Limited. It was decided in the general house meeting of January 30 that the contracts of both contractors be cancelled with immediate effect and all parking lots to be taken over and run by the MCC.
However, the civic body started operating 73 out of the 89 parking lots from February 21 after arranging requisite manpower and POS machines from private banks after following the due procedures. From January 30 to February 20, the parking lots were running free-of-cost for the people.
As per the information tabled by MCC officials in the general house meeting on May 13 this year, the civic body could generate ₹1.03 crore from February 21 to March 20 and out of this ₹51 lakh was the expenditure incurred on the manpower while the remaining ₹51.98 lakh was the net income. For the second month of operations, the civic body could generate ₹1.05 crore from March 21 to April 20 of which ₹62.61 lakh was expenditure and ₹43.15 lakh was the income.
However, with contractors managing the parking lots, the MCC was earning an income of around ₹95 lakh every month.
Mayor Anup Gupta said, “With annual contracts, the MCC was earning ₹90 lakh to ₹95 lakh every month but now the earnings have reduced to half. This is because we had to outsource 300 people for managing the parking lots at DC rate which resulted in high expenditure as compared to income. We are framing policies for new contracts and the agenda will be tabled in the house meeting soon. It will take at least three more months to allot tenders and operations to new firms to manage city’s parking lots.”
Short of staff, technology to run parking lots: MC
In the house meeting, MCC officials said that the civic body has no professional expertise for management of parking lots and that the working of its B&R department is getting affected because of deploying its staff to manage the parking lots.
“The MCC does not have technical tools to monitor the performance of individual parking as well as we do not have technical tools to identify points of leakage of revenue,” the officials said.
Though an agenda was tabled to stop the operations of parking lots by the MCC and make it free-of-cost for the public till the next contractors take over, the plan was rejected by the general house.
What councillors say
AAP councillor Damanpreet Singh, who is the leader of the opposition, said, “Though AAP always wanted to make parking free of cost for the public, we decided that MC should run the lots till private contractors take over to protect jobs of the outsourced staff.”
BJP councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu said, “The MCC should continue to run parking lots till the new firm takes over as earning something is better than nothing. Also, with attendants in place, people park vehicles in an effective way as in case of free parking, haphazard parking will be witnessed.”
