New Delhi: The Delhi government has issued guidelines to rationalise parking in the city.
These guidelines include accelerating work on area-specific parking plans (APPs) and prioritizing different user requirements in future parking plans.
These needs include those of pedestrians, cyclists, people with disabilities, emergency vehicles, public transport, and the parking needs of schools and other public facilities.
Moreover, any area not designated as a parking space is automatically considered a no-parking zone. In 2020, MCD prepared plans for at least 17 settlements and submitted them to the Transport Department of the Government of Delhi.
Except for four, the remaining plans were not approved, a senior MCD official said. Of the four approved plans, two were implemented in Lajpat Nagar III and Lajpat Nagar Market. Due to amendments suggested by local residents at the remaining two locations – Gulmohar Park and Neeti Bagh – the plans remained on hold.
Approval for Anand Lok, Aurobindo Marg (IIT to AIIMS), Geetanjali Enclave, Green Park Extension, Kailash Colony, Kailash Hills, Punjabi Bagh Banquet Halls, Malviya Nagar, Panchsheel Enclave, Safdarjung Development Area and Siddharth Extension Pocket-B from 2021 is still awaited.
According to officials, Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena recently held a review meeting in which representatives of the traffic and transport authorities and other departments participated.
Instructions were given to relieve Delhi, for which the Parking space management plan must be driven by all authorities. The Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, 2019, were notified in September the same year. Under the policy, the municipal bodies were to create PAMPs and regulate haphazard parking in residential and commercial areas. It was also recommended that dynamic pricing mechanism for peak and off-peak times.
Further instructions were that parking charges should be optimal, not too high to drastically reduce occupancy and not too low to boost demand. Also, dynamic pricing strategies would have to be introduced to discourage long-term parking and encourage efficient use of space, a senior official said. It was also directed to introduce peak and off-peak charges that increase exponentially per hour of use to effectively manage parking demand.
According to the instructions, parking fees would also be increased on days of high air pollution as part of the phased response action plan.
To use Public transportation In a bid to reduce pollution in Delhi and curb air pollution, the Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Region (CAQM) has also directed municipal authorities to review and “rationalise” parking charges for private vehicles by the end of September.
This measure is intended to create a uniform parking fee structure in the city, which will be gradually increased depending on the time of day and traffic volume in an area, according to the CAQM.
