Nod for hefty parking fees in core Bangalore areas

The State government on Thursday approved a new parking policy that proposes hefty parking fees in core Bangalore areas.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in a written reply to M C Nanaiah and M Srinivas (both Janata Dal-Secular) in the Legislative Council, said the State government had already approved the policy and steps would soon be taken to introduce a new pay-and-park system.

The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council in September this year passed a resolution to implement the new parking policy, which has categorised the Central Business District and other premium locations into three parking zones—A, B and C—and stipulated separate fee for different category of vehicles in each of them.

Package A is meant for premium parking, package B for business areas and package C for others.

In package A, the fee for four-wheelers is Rs 30 per hour and Rs 15 for two-wheelers. In package B, Rs 20 per hour for four-wheelers and Rs 10 for two-wheelers. In Package C, four-wheelers will be charged Rs 15 per hour, while two-wheelers will be charged Rs 5. Only bicycles will be exempted from paying parking fee.

The policy was drafted by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport.

Siddaramaiah, who also holds the Bangalore development portfolio, has stated the government has given in-principle approval to the BBMP to establish multi-storey parking complexes in nine different locations. Steps have been taken to tender the construction of a multi-level underground parking lot at Freedom Park on Sheshadri Road and a multi-storey parking complex at Shivajinagar.

The chief minister said 1,169 of the total 81,117 commercial complexes in the BBMP limits had defaulted payment of property tax to the tune of Rs 35.76 crore in the last three years.

Steps would be taken to close all these complexes if they failed to pay up the tax.

He said Rs 17.63 crore for planting about 5.47 lakh saplings in the BBMP limits between 2010-11 and 2012-13 had been allotted. About Rs 4.57 crore had been spent on their maintenance and upkeep during this period.

Interestingly, about Rs 5.13 crore was spent on planting 3.12 lakh saplings in 2010-11. But in 2011-12, Rs 8.10 crore was spent on planting only 58,000 saplings.