Now, parking fee hike to hit wallets in Chandigarh

Still suffering the jolt of property and collector rate hikes, Chandigarh residents may soon feel another pinch in their wallets — this time due to increased parking charges.

Barely a month after the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) scrapped its long-pending Smart Parking Project, the civic body is back with a fresh proposal — complete with steeper parking charges and a push to revive the plan through a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

The agenda, which will be tabled for discussion in the upcoming MC General House meeting on April 30, also introduces new mechanisms to gather vehicle-stay data through integrated POS machines, with software support proposed from the Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC).

According to the proposal, an MC committee had recently finalised the groundwork for preparing a new request for proposal (RFP) for the smart parking solution.

Officials stated that several critical features were discussed for the revamped project — revenue-sharing illustrations, data protection mechanisms, GST and stamp duty inclusion, and, crucially, a revised parking fee structure.

As per the new parking rates proposal, the first 15 minutes shall be free across 84 parking lots of the city — a moved aimed to encourage quick departure of short-stay visitors. This will facilitate faster circulation of vehicles and optimum utilisation of parking space.

Thereon, four-wheelers will be charged ₹20 for up to four hours of parking — a sharp increase from the existing ₹14 — while two-wheelers will pay ₹10 instead of ₹7.

A special rate of ₹85 for the first four hours has been proposed for the parking lots near Elante Mall, Fun Republic and Piccadily Square, making parking there most expensive in the city (see chart below).

Meanwhile, electric vehicles (both two-wheelers and four-wheelers) have been promised free parking — until March 31, 2027. Post that, they too will be subjected to prevailing parking fees.

For optimal utilisation of parking space, parking in underground facilities has been incentivised by charging ₹5 less than the surface parking rates, across all slabs. Also, to encourage the use of digital payments, MC will charge ₹5 extra in case of cash payments.

Interestingly, the new parking rates will apply uniformly across the city — irrespective of whether the parking lots are operated directly by the MC or leased out to private contractors via e-tendering.

Smart Parking project was shelved last month

Originally conceived in August 2022, the Smart Parking project aimed to introduce a FASTag-enabled parking system across all parking lots in Chandigarh. In July 2023, MC House had decided on new rates under the Smart Parking project, which would be implemented only after the project’s roll-out.

MC had planned a marginal fee hike for tricity cars but decided to double the fee for out-of-tricity vehicles. The then Punjab governor and UT administrator, Banwarilal Purohit, had rejected the proposal to double parking fees for outside vehicles, but approved the hiked rates.

But after years of delay, the much-anticipated Smart Parking project was rejected by the House last month, citing flawed tender conditions, and councillors had called for a fresh blueprint with revised rates and conditions.

MC had said the rates proposed in the old project proposal, when combined with GST, result in impractical amounts, making payments inconvenient for residents. In the new proposal now, MC has rounded the figures off for easier transactions.