Solution to Mumbai's parking woes delayed by a year

Cars parked outside Crawford market. File pic

A solution to the city's parking woes is one of the major things that the pandemic has delayed. While it put a break on the work of the expert panel that was constituted last year, the new panel which was formed in January this year will take another year to complete its study and provide recommendations to solve the city's parking problems.

Earlier, the BMC had appointed All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to conduct the studies and form the first-of-its-kind Mumbai Parking Authority (MPT) for the city. The BMC spent '2.36 crore as charges between February 2019 and January 2020. The proposal from the Road and Traffic department of the BMC to approve another '42 lakh for the three-month period before the lockdown in April last year for AIILSG will be tabled in the standing committee for an approval.

As per the department, the expert panel was reconstituted in January this year. The TISS has been working as the agency and is expected to complete their work with the help of city planners and geographic information system (GIS) designers within a year. The BMC will spend an additional '2 crore as charges for the next one year.

"The previous panel completed some of the work like identifying parking lots in some wards and drafting a policy. Complete survey of parking spaces across the city and GIS mapping for the app will be completed within a year. Even parking charges, fine amounts will be decided," said an official. However, it will take another year to formulate the parking authority, which was first mentioned in the Development Plan 2034.

2 cr
Addl amount BMC will sepnt for next 1 year