No check on parking mafia at Galleria

The parking mafia has got a free hand to operate illegal parking at the Galleria Market here as the city police refused to lodge an FIR against the contractor. Sunil Thapliyal reports.

The parking mafia has got a free hand to operate illegal parking at the Galleria Market here as the city police refused to lodge an FIR against the contractor.

HT Image

On Friday, when the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) approached the Sector 29 police station for filing a complaint against the contractor, the police said the land does not belong to Huda, and hence, it cannot file a complaint.

The Sector 29 police station SHO said that he has not received any complaint from Huda.

“I am not aware of any such complaint,” said Jagdish Parshad, SHO of Sector 29 police station. However, HT has a copy of the complaint filed by the Huda official on Friday.

The complaint was filed after Huda administrator Praveen Kumar made a surprise inspection in the area.

The Huda chief then ordered sub-divisional engineer SK Rana to re-visit the area. When Rana summoned the contractor concerned, he did not turn up.

“The parking attendants failed to produce any relevant documents,” said Rana.

The Huda chief said that the department is authorised to take action against “any such contractor operating in violation of the law and cause nuisance in the neighbourhood, irrespective of the land owners”.

Meanwhile, Dilbagh Singh, district town planner (enforcement), said that his department will take action if the matter comes under its jurisdiction.

“We can take action if the land belongs to any licensee. However I am not aware of the matter and cannot comment on it,” said Singh.

The local residents have also written to the police commissioner, seeking his intervention in curbing the illegal activity, which cause nuisance and security threat in the area. “We brought the problem in to the notice of the Huda administrator. He conducted on-the-spot inspection. Huda officials complained against the contractor who also admitted that he has no authority to run the parking,” said Vijay Khanna, a resident.