South Delhi parking lots set to become tech-savvy, user-friendly

Aimed at tightening the noose around the parking mafias, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation has decided to issue new guidelines to be followed while allotting parking lots including the use technology to monitor better functioning of the surface parking lots in South Delhi.

The new parking policy includes a heft penalty against contractors for both minor and major violations, technological innovations like mandatory hand-held device for issuing parking slips, integration of records with the servers of Delhi police, installation of CCTV cameras and automatic boom barriers at some of the parking lots.

The corporation officials have taken an anticipatory approval of the standing committee. The implementation of the policy will start this month with the registration of contractors, who intend to participate in the bidding process later.

“The parking lots are likely to become operational as per the new policy from January 1. The policy has been changed to ensure that residents are not fleeced by contractors,” said SDMC mayor Savita Gupta.

“While technology such as hand-held devices will ensure transparency, the clause of heft fines will act as a deterrent,” added mayor Savita Gupta.

The Supreme Court appointed EPCA committee that had made it mandatory for all the agencies to introduce hand-held devices at all the parking lots. The officials said monitoring of operation will be on a real time basis.

“The devices will have SAM cards, which makes it impossible to tamper with them,” said a corporation official. “Automatic boom barriers have already been installed at some of the parking lots like South Extension. CCTV cameras will be installed at all the parking lots. The local police station will be able to access the footage,” added the official.

“If a car comes to a parking lot and once the number is punched in the device for issuing a slip, it will caution the parking attendant about a stolen vehicle. It will be the duty of the contractor to inform police,” the official added.

The officials said every parking lot will have three to four attendants in uniform with hand-held devices, who will act as a back up if any technical glitch comes up.

“All the devices can generate a few hundred slips even if there is a snag with them. The technology is such that all data gets updated on real time basis once its reconnects with the server,” a senior official said.

While parking lots were earlier alloted to contractors for five years, this time it will be for two years.

The officials said the technological innovations will also help them in generating an exact database of number of vehicles parked in a parking lot.

“It will help us in assessing the revenue generated by the contractor and fixing the correct reserve price during the next auction,” official said. “Any kind of violation will result in cancellation of the contract.”

At present, there are 74 parking lots under the jurisdiction of SDMC. Fifty more places have been identified for surface parking, said the official.