Snag at new parking lot in Sarojini Nagar leads to chaos

For hundreds of motorists, parking their vehicles at the Sarojini Nagar multi-level parking proved to be a messy affair on Friday. Due to a technical snag, they were unable to retrieve their vehicles. While a few lucky ones were able to get it back after a few hours, others had to wait throughout the night. HT reports.

For hundreds of motorists, parking their vehicles at the Sarojini Nagar multi-level parking proved to be a messy affair on Friday. Due to a technical snag, they were unable to retrieve their vehicles. While a few lucky ones were able to get it back after a few hours, others had to wait throughout the night.

HT Image

People had queued up outside the first multi-level automatic parking lot — which was thrown open for the public last month — at around 6.30 pm, trying to get their vehicles back.

“When I reached there to retrieve my car, the staff told me that it had stopped functioning and cars were stuck inside the lot. When everything failed, they started retrieving the vehicles manually with the help of cranes,” said Indra Raghuvanshi, whose car was stuck.

The Sarojini Nagar parking uses a new technology under which a car user can place the vehicle on the empty palette located on the ground floor and the palette will move and park it at an empty space. The system can be compared to Rubik’s cube, where through continuous space shift, parking and fetching a car can be realised. “While submitting the car, a slip is given with a number on it and based on that number, the car can be identified. It was getting difficult to find out who was the owner of the car as the computer system had stopped functioning,” said another person whose car was stuck inside.

“We are in touch with the company headquarter in Pune through video conferencing. We will be rectifying it soon,” said NDMC spokesperson Amit Prasad. The parking lot can accommodate 1,408 vehicles and the fee is Rs 10 for an hour.