Innovative solutions for Delhi's parking mess

How will you feel when charged exorbitantly for parking next to your favourite restaurant while a bureaucrat dining at the same place is let go without paying a single penny? Or, if you have to pay the hefty parking amount just to drop a cheque in that market ATM? Atul Mathur reports.

The addition of 10,000 new autorickshaws on the roads in the next few months will benefit people travelling between Delhi and NCR towns the most.

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Delhi's transport department officials said they will give out NCR permits to the drivers willing to take passengers to the satellite towns of Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad.

Though the Supreme Court had lifted the cap of 55,000 autorickshaws in Delhi and allowed the government to give out 45,000 more permits, Delhi government had decided to give out only 10,000 new permits in the first phase. But the court's decision has paved the way for autorickshaws registered in the neighbouring towns to freely cross over the state border.

"Though the decision to allow their free movement was taken in 2008, it was never implemented because of the Supreme Court order in 1997 restricting the number of autorickshaws in Delhi at 55,000 at any given point in time. There was no way we could have checked the number of autorickshaws registered in other states but plying in Delhi," a transport department official said.

The governments of Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan had signed reciprocal common transport agreement in December 2008 to allow buses, conventional and radio taxis and autorickshaws registered in other states to move freely in their states.

While buses and taxis move freely between these states, the decision on autorickshaws could never be implemented, fearing contempt of court.