Free parking for MCD councillors, officers

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation is planning to allow elected representatives and its officials to park their vehicles for free at all authorised parking lots under its jurisdiction, even as the civil society and government agencies are pitching in to hike parking charges across the Capital.

The decision will benefit nearly 500 elected representatives and officers. While the benefit will be extended to councillors of all three municipal corporations, it will be restricted to officers of South Corporation only.

“The beneficiaries will be 10 MPs from Delhi (seven Lok Sabha and three Rajya Sabha), 70 MLAs and 272 councilors of the three municipal bodies. Nearly 150 class-I officers of SDMC will also get the benefit,” said a senior officer of the remunerative project cell.

A proposal in this regard will be placed for clearance in the next meeting of the remunerative project cell, ahead of placing it before the standing committee and the House meeting for final approval.

Officials said they will issue a specific parking sticker against the registration number of the vehicles. This will enable free entry and exit of vehicles into parking lots in south Delhi.

“A list of these vehicles will be prepared and a copy each will be given to all parking contractors and attendants. If any attendant is found demanding parking charges from these beneficiaries, it will be considered a violation and the contractor will be fined,” the officer said. Conditions pertaining to free parking will also be incorporated in the parking policy of the South Corporation, he added.

Currently, vehicles of Members of Parliament and MLAs are not exempted from parking charges in public parking places.

The unified muncipal corporation had adopted a policy allowing free parking for councillors, but the decision is not being implemented. It has been their long-pending demand to exempt them from parking charges.