Mumbaikars slam reduction of Rs 2,000 in parking fine

Mumbaikars claim that the fines are unfair when there are no public parking lots. File pic

Unimpressed by the civic body's revised, and reduced, parking fines, a chunk of citizens is sticking to its plan of going to court against it. Based on a January 6 circular, unauthorised parking within 500 metres of a public parking lot or a BEST bus depot will result in 40 times the charge of the public parking lot.

In case of the city's four arterial roads that have been declared as no-parking zones, vehicles will have to shell out 80 times the parking charge. Additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal said, "We modified the parking fines to make them reasonable and also a good enough deterrent. The new rates will come into effect this week."

Nikhil Desai, an activist and resident of Matunga Road, felt that the civic body is not taking people's concerns into consideration. "It doesn't make any sense to charge car owners R4,000 near public parking lots (PPL) and R8,000 on arterial roads. The BMC needs to bring in a uniform fine and observe its effect for a year. They can increase it in areas that show no progress," he said.

Owners of private buses aren't impressed either. Malik Patel, secretary of the Mumbai Bus Malak Sanghatna, said, "Instead of focusing on providing parking infrastructure, the BMC is more interested in levying fines. They don't understand traffic the way traffic police do. They are simply looting people. We will file our petition in court next week." Ashok Gupta, Vice President of the Marine Drive Citizens' Association, referred to the fine as absurd. "Instead of fining people, the BMC should first create parking spaces. We will oppose any absurd parking fee," he said.

Resistance from residents Gokhale Road had forced the BMC to drop the penalty in the area last month. Resident Kashmira Patkar said, "You can charge up to Rs 800. I can understand if there is such a fine around public parking lots but the fine doesn't make sense on arterial roads."

With Gokhale Road having no fines, there were no takers for the shuttle service and the G North ward decided to discontinue it. "The buses made 22 rounds per day and on average, there were only 45 commuters per day. Due to the poor response, we discontinued the bus service starting Tuesday," said an official requesting anonymity.

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