MCD, NDMC take Rs 20 cr hit on parking

Municipal bodies in Delhi have taken a hit of nearly Rs 20 crore on its collections from parking lots in 2002-03.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) lost Rs 13.25 crore due to non-recovery of licence fees from parking contractors and unauthorised parking lots accounted for Rs 1 crore annual loss.

According to a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, the municipal bodies could not recover Rs 4.59 crore due to "inaction on its part", while Rs 1.06 crore was blocked in litigation.

Experts said the loss on account of unauthorised parking lots might have been grossly underestimated as the CAG report zeroed in on only 36 unauthorised parking lots.

"It's inconceivable that a city like Delhi that has over 35 lakh vehicles has only 36 unauthorised parking lots," an expert said. The agencies failed to prevent unauthorised parking operations because of non-provision of site maps and lack of demarcation and regular inspections, he said.

Numerous instances of violation of terms of contract have been seen in the allotment of parking lots by the MCD and NDMC, coupled with a failure to enforce terms of contracts. This resulted in undue benefits to contractors, to the detriment of the Corporation/Council.

Contractors were allowed to run parking lots even after the expiry of the contract periods, without regular payments of licence fees, says the report.

They could not prevent the misuse of parking lots and overcharging of parking fees. The failure to enforce the terms of contract, coupled with irregular security deposit, resulted in a loss of Rs 2.38 crore to the MCD.

There are over 67 parking lots under the MCD. It is planning 30 more. While a majority of them are on the roadside, three are built-up parking lots in Gandhi Maidan, Fatehpur, and Asaf Ali Road. The MCD's turnover last fiscal stood at nearly Rs 11 crore. As in June 2004, it had earned over Rs 4 crore.

To address the problem of illegal parking, the MCD has made it mandatory only for registered contractors to take part in the bidding process for its tenders.

MCD sources say in a proposal sent to the public works department (PWD) in June, it was suggested that a memorandum of understanding be signed so as to enable the corporation to legalise parking under flyovers, which are areas of unauthorised parking, falling under the jurisdiction of the PWD.

Sources also say obtaining no-objection certificates from the traffic department and the land-owning authorities is another reason for the delay in legalising parking facilities.

During the last fiscal, the NDMC's revenues stood at Rs 7 crore. While it has 107 parking lots, due to the construction of the metro rail in the city 10 are non-operational.

It is planning three hi-tech multi-level parking lots on a build-operate-transfer basis. An outlay of Rs 4 crore was sanctioned for the NDMC in the Ninth Five-Year Plan of 1998-2003, out of which the Council incurred an expenditure of Rs 18.25 lakh, according to the report.