MCD to take fresh look at parking plan for 15 areas in Delhi

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) plans to launch a fresh survey in 15 localities to draft parking area management plans in order to streamline parking and remove congestion, senior civic officials aware of the development said on Monday. These localities include Anand Lok, Aurobindo Marg, Geetanjali Enclave, Green Park Extension, Gulmohar Park, Safdarjung Development Area, Kailash Hills, Niti Bagh, and Panchsheel Enclave.

The parking area management plans were a crucial component of the Delhi Maintenance and Management of Parking Places Rules, which were notified in September 2019. The civic bodies that administered these areas conducted surveys to draw localised plans, but they were never implemented due to a lack of consensus between various stakeholders.

The Master Plan of Delhi 2021 envisaged the Parking Management District (PMD) Plan that was adapted by city planners as Paring Management Area Plan (PMAP). According to MPD 2021, parking management must be effectively used as a tool to reduce overall demand for parking space and the objective of PMAP is to provide comprehensive facilities for all modes including pedestrians, non-motorised transport, cycle tracks, vending zones, bus stops, public amenities in addition to on-street and off-street parking for private vehicles.

A senior MCD official explained that PMAP was supposed to provide area-specific solutions for parking management in residential and commercial areas. “The parking policy had authorised the erstwhile municipal corporations to make parking management area plans with neighbourhood-specific solutions while ensuring rights of pedestrians, cyclists, emergency vehicles and vendors. Most of these draft plans were made for south Delhi areas,” the official added.

The erstwhile South MCD conducted a survey between 2020 and 2021 in 17 areas to map parking issues there and find solutions. They were placed in the public domain for feedback in June 2021. However, more than three years after the first set of such plans was drawn up and shared with the residents, they are yet to be implemented in 15 areas.

According to civic officials the plans were implemented in Lajpat Nagar Market and Lajpat Nagar 3, but residents and shopkeepers said there has been no improvement on the ground.

“These parking area management plans were kept for public feedback in June 2021 and later submitted to the transport department for approval. The ground situation must have changed over the last three years and these plans will need to be modified accordingly. We have decided to conduct fresh survey in these neighbourhoods,” said a senior MCD official, on condition of anonymity.

Besides PMAPs, several other features of parking policy have still not been implemented in the city such as framing dynamic parking pricing for peak and non-peak hours.

Delhi has more than 20 million residents and 7.7 million registered vehicles (according to Delhi economic survey, 2022-23). However, the city faces an acute lack of parking space with most residents across Delhi localities parking their vehicles on colony roads and pavements.

MCD operates 417 parking lots with space to accommodate nearly 50,000 cars.

Pankaj Aggarwal, a member of Safdarjung RWA, said that the vehicle occupancy has increased manyfold with more dwelling units on each floor and people fight over parking space. “Authorities need to earmark and ration the space in residental colonies and mark common parking areas to regulate the process. Also, though the Metro has improved access to other parts of the city, last mile connectivity is poor. Footpaths have been encroached upon, leaving no space for residents to walk safely,” he said.

However, officials said that a lack of political will, competing interests between RWAs and market associations, as well as repeated disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic have ensured that these plans have largely remained on paper.

When asked about the reasons behind the revival of the local parking plans, mayor Shelly Oberoi did not immediately offer a comment. AAP MCD in-charge and Rajinder Nagar MLA Durgesh Pathak said the previous plans had flaws and were finalised without enough public participation.

Ashok Marwah, general secretary of the Lajpat Nagar market association, said that the space allocation and parking plan is being followed in the on-street parking, but problems are being faced in residential pockets since there was no consensus over common parking spaces between residents and shop owners. Marwah said that the market association is managing the parking based on an MoU with the civic body.

A senior transport department official said that it is reviewing the whole framework and making the planning process more participatory. “We tried to notify four of these Parking Management Area Plans which were to be executed by MCD but there were challenges from RWAs and market associations when MCD went to implement them on ground. We shall be reviewing the whole parking framework and make the planning more participatory through MCD to ensure effective implementation,” the official said.

Talking about the importance of localised plans, Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said, “Implementation of PMAP is necessary. While organising and managing parking demand, they also help reduce demand for parking. Area-based plans help organise street activities and road users while identifying legal parking areas. This also enables variable pricing to reduce peak demand.”