3 weeks ago
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The Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Agency (CUMTA) has come with a draft motor vehicle parking policy and it would be finalised within three months after obtaining the remarks of the relevant departments, the State government informed the Madras High Court on Monday.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad was informed that CUMTA’s draft policy was presented in a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Shiv Das Meena on March 11, 2024 and that certain suggestions were incorporated in it.
Thereafter, the draft policy was circulated to the Municipal Administration and Water Supply, Home, Transport, Highways and Minor Ports for their remarks. After the receipt of the remarks of those departments, the policy would be finalised and implemented in letter and spirit, the government said.
Filing a status report in response to a public interest litigation petition pending in the court since 2021, the Housing and Urban Development department Additional Secretary M. Vijayalakshmi said it was the government which had directed CUMTA to come up with the draft policy on parking.
Since the model code of conduct was in force across the State in view of the Lok Sabha elections, a government order with respect to the draft policy would be issued after the code of conduct gets lifted, she added. State Government Pleader A. Edwin Prabhakar said the final policy would be released within three months.
After recording the submissions, the judges said they expected the final policy to be implemented strictly in order to avoid inconvenience caused to general public due to haphazard parking of vehicles on roads. They also said the petitioner could approach the court again if there was unreasonable delay in finalising the policy.
T. Sri Krishna Bhagavat had filed the PIL petition complaining about the menace of parking of motor vehicles even on pavements. In response, the government initially told the court that Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) had implemented a technology diver street parking management system.
Under the system implemented through the public-private partnership model, private service providers were identified through a transparent tender process and tasked with the duty of marking designated parking lots in bus route roads as well as non bus route roads and to collect the parking charges.
“In Greater Chennai Corporation, currently ₹20 is collected per equivalent car space on normal roads and ₹40 on premium roads. Through this project, parking management has been streamlined and it has created a hassle free parking experience for the citizens,” the Housing and Urban Development department said.
In addition, a multi-level car parking facility had been created in T.Nagar with a capacity to park 222 cars at a time and feasibility of creating more such facilities was also being explored, the department told the court.
