Women to get 50% reservation in BMC’s pay-and-park contracts

Just a day after the Maharashtra assembly passed the women’s reservation bill, giving them a 50% quota in local self-government bodies, it was Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) turn to woo women.

Just a day after the Maharashtra assembly passed the women’s reservation bill, giving them a 50% quota in local self-government bodies, it was Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) turn to woo women.

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The civic body on Wednesday decided to provide reservation to women in parking lot contracts. As per the plan, 50% contracts in the pay-and-park lots will be reserved for women self-help groups, 25% for educated unemployed youth and remaining 25% for general category. Of the 92 pay-and-park lots in the city, 46

will be reserved for women, 23 for educated unemployed and remaining 23 for open category.

The decision to reserve 50% parking lots for women had initially been taken in March 2010, but had not been implemented so far; contracts for 92 pay-and-park lots in the city had expired last year.

In a meeting held on Wednesday and attended by all political party leaders, mayor Shraddha Jadhav held a draw of lots to decide which parking lot would be reserved for whom. “One person, contractor or a self-help group can apply only for one lot,” said Ashish Shelar, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader.

While Rajhans Singh, opposition leader in the BMC had demanded 50% reservation in the pay-and-park lot contract, Rahul Shewale, chairman of the civic standing committee, had sought 25% quota for educated unemployed youth.

RN Kulkarni, chief engineer, civic road department, which deals with the parking lot issue, said, “We will soon start the process of awarding contracts as per the allotted reservation. The process will take at least two-three months as the department will be now publish advertisement for each lot and invite bids.”

The contract will be awarded for the next two years and the civic body is expected to earn Rs11.13 crore from these lots. These 92 parking lots will get 1.18-lakh sqm area each to be utilised as a pay-and-park lot.