Freedom Park parking lot becoming a white elephant?

Inside view. Dh Photo/S K Dinesh

Failure to enforce parking restrictions in the Central Business district (CBD) has come to haunt civic authorities who are now struggling to operationalise a huge multi-level parking facility at Freedom Park.

The Rs 80-crore facility, built after missing multiple deadlines, is struggling to attract bidders despite the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) calling two tenders because bidders are wary of losing business to free parking areas in and around the park, the mushrooming of which authorities have neglected to check.

Indeed, the BBMP received no bidders for the first tender to operate and maintain the facility. “We’ve issued a second call and are awaiting a response,” BBMP Chief Engineer (Projects-Central) M Lokesh said.

Sources said the second tender got some response, but bidders had asked authorities to slash the reserve price from Rs 4.5 crore to Rs 2 crore per annum. “We fixed the final price after studying the parking trends at Garuda Mall, the Maharaja Complex, Forum Mall and the on-street parking facilities. We’ve rejected their pleas,” a senior BBMP official said.

Bidders point to free parking facilities around Freedom Park that could divert vehicles from the new parking facility. “They feel the free parking in and around Kalidasa Road could bleed their business. We’ve asked the traffic police to mark all places except the designated ones as no parking zones,” an engineer working on the project told DH.

Officials fear they may have to slash the reserve price if the second tender call also falls through. “We’ll have to modify a few conditions for the third call if we don’t get suitable bids,” a senior BBMP official said.

Though work on the parking facility began in 2017, it did not progress till 2019. “We stumbled on a hard rock during excavation. The mine and geology department intervened and demanded royalty. After multiple meetings, we got the go-ahead in 2019,” a senior official told this newspaper, adding that the pandemic delayed the project by one more year.

The BBMP is putting up solar panels across the park’s two-acre protesting area, which is adequate to power up the parking facility.

NGO Janaagraha’s head of civic participation Srinivas Alavilli said those like the multi-level parking lot would succeed only if the BBMP enforced existing rules. “Authorities can leverage existing policies to regulate parking in the CBD and other commercial areas in the city before focusing on residential areas,” he said.

If paid parking complements measures like last-mile connectivity, it will change those who take parking for granted, Alavilli suggested.

Lokesh assured that the authorities will work with traffic police to make surrounding areas no parking zones. “Besides designated places, parking will be banned on Kalidas Road 6th Cross, 5th Cross, 4th Cross, 3rd Cross and 2nd Cross,” he said.

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