Capital’s parking policy etched on paper, but little impact on ground

Despite the direct intervention of the Supreme Court, leading to notification of Delhi’s parking policy in September 2019, key features of the plan are yet to be implemented in the city.

Last week, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) decided to hire a private agency for implementation of parking policy in heavily congested trans-Yamuna areas. The project will be carried out on public-private partnership (PPP) basis and the private operator will help the civic agency in formulating solutions, enforcement as well as monitoring through a software-based mechanism, the civic agency has said.

Haphazardly parked vehicles on roads and pavements are a common sight in Delhi -- a city that has 13.4million vehicles. (REUTERS)

Despite the direct intervention of the Supreme Court, leading to notification of Delhi’s parking policy in September 2019, key features of the plan are yet to be implemented in the city.

A senior EDMC official from the remunerative projects (RP) cell explained that roping in a private player is expected to expedite the parking management and enforcement in east Delhi. “The tenders have been floated for development, implementation and maintenance of parkings on PPP mode. A monitoring software will be developed by the contractor and committee of civic officials will carry out the monitoring,” the official said.

Haphazardly parked vehicles on roads and pavements are a common sight in Delhi -- a city that has 13.4million vehicles. Counted among the cities with poor parking facilities globally, Delhi continues to struggle to streamline its parking management despite a policy in place. Despite the government notifying the Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, 2019, it had been put on the backburner by the three municipal agencies which are tasked with its implementation.

Under the parking policy, the corporations were expected to chalk out parking management area plans (PMAPs) to streamline parking. The policy had also recommended a dynamic pricing mechanism for parking in peak and non-peak hours. Lack of initiative at political level to take unpopular decisions, competing interests of stakeholders and repeated disruptions due to pandemic have ensured that these plans have largely remained on paper, several stakeholders pointed out.

Anumita Roychowdhary, executive director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE),and a member of the committee that drafted the parking rules, said implementation of the policy has slowed down and Delhi immediately requires ward-wise parking plans and a clear implementation timeline. “We need a sense of urgency in the implementation of the policy because vehicles are one of the biggest contributors to the pollution in the city.”

Under the policy, the civic bodies were expected to prepare parking management area plans PMAPs with neighbourhood-specific solutions while taking care of rights of pedestrians, cyclists, emergency vehicles and vendors. However, the process continues to move at snail’s pace.

Key features of Delhi's parking policy are yet to be implemented in the city.

The South corporation has finalised PMAPs for 16 areas with diverse regions including Safdarjung Development Area (SDA) to Nizammudin Basti during June-August 2021 last year, but the implementation has not started yet. An SDMC official said that the final notification of the plans will be done by the Delhi government. “We are also planning to give the parking area management plan implementation work to Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd. BECIL- a public sector enterprise,” official added.

The Delhi government did not respond to repeated texts and calls.

North MCD has initiated 20 parking plans of which seven are in final stages, and two may be soon put in public domain for feedback, a civic body official said. Similarly, EDMC is also in the process of finalising PMAPs for Bhajanpura and Laxmi Nagar. An official with EDMC parking division said the process may still take another month. “There are so many stakeholders and competing interests involved. We also have severe budget constraints with corporation being unable to even pay salaries of workers. There are demands of parking space between RWAs, markets and East Delhi clearly has shortage of open land. PMAPs will need initiative at higher political level and assistance from Delhi government for implementation.”

The lethargy in enforcement has ensured that even the three SC-approved model parking projects -- Lajpat Nagar, Krishna Nagar and Kamala Nagar -- which were expected to showcase the benefits of parking rules remain effectively unimplemented. The Karol Bagh predestination project and parking/circulation plan, which was cleared by the lieutenant governor-led UTTIPEC in April 2010, also remains a work in progress.

In East Delhi’s Krishna Nagar, pedestrianization of Lal Quarter market was carried out in October 2019 and on-street parking was shifted to nearby multilevel parking facility. BS Vohra, head of East Delhi RWA joint front & local RWA said the initiative failed in just one month. “There is lack of political will. Any new project will require adjustments from some stakeholders and everyone cannot be pleased. Instead of finding solutions to traffic circulation problems, entire project was shelved,” Vohra said.

An EDMC official said that they faced a lot of resistance from local market and residents. “We could not take forward the Krishna Nagar project at a successful level and it needs to be reworked,” he said.

The North MCD had kick-started its pedestrianization and parking management project at Kamala Nagar in December 2019 by turning Mandelia Road into a no-parking zone but could not go forward.

Nitin Gupta, president of Kamala Nagar traders’ association said that the issues related to street vendors and parking shortage need to be worked out before restricting the traffic. “We are willing to co-operate and even help in funds related problems in beautification of area but corporation needs to stop new street vendors from encroaching space and make some surface parking provision for shop owners/workers,” he added.

The pedestrianisation Ajmal Khan Road in Karol Bagh was first implemented in May 2019, but the project has failed to make further headway in terms of improving parking space availability through grid parking, marking vending zones and streamlining traffic mobility in region.

Murali Mani, who heads local traders’ welfare association said they are not satisfied with the progress of the project. “Four multi-storey parking facilities were to be set up and grid surface parking provisions were also to be made. In second phase, the project was to be expanded to neighbouring areas and by-lanes, but nothing has been carried out. Even the benches installed on the road are now mostly broken,” Mani said.

North MCD is relocating the street vendors from the site of an upcoming multilevel parking lot at Bank street. Harjeet Singh, who heads street vendors association said that the relocation sites in Moti Nagar and Naraina are also problematic as the existing markets in those locations do no want new traders.

Jogi Ram Jain, the standing committee chairman said all stakeholders need to be brought on board before expanding the project. Jai Prakash, former North MCD mayor, said traders have been resisting the project from the beginning but the implementation of next phases must have been ensured by the subsequent officials. “Momentum of such projects cannot be maintained unless there is constant initiative from both political and executive side. When the first relaxation was provided in during the Covid, people moved back to the old habits,” he added.

The parking policy mandates a steep hike in parking charges in Delhi to discourage the use of private vehicles and promote public transport and to discourage on-street parking for long durations. But barring select locations such Ajmal Khan Road and Green Park market, no price hike has been cleared. The government has repeatedly deferred the dynamic pricing citing the financial stress on residents due to the coronavirus pandemic and the political wings corporations have also been reluctant to adopt any price hike with upcoming municipal elections.