Now, pay more for parking at Connaught Place in central Delhi

You will soon have to pay much more to park at Connaught Place, Delhi’s high street shopping destination, beyond a period of five hours. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has decided to remove the current upper cap of R100 on parking charges -- effecting a steep hike in the rates.

Presently, people pay R20 per hour for the first five hours and a flat rate of R100 for any period beyond that. According to the council’s new plan, residents will pay R20 for every extra hour even beyond the five-hour limit.

“We will soon implement this in Connaught Place as part of the smart parking initiative. There will be no cap on the parking charges. People will have to pay up R20 for every extra hour even beyond the current five-hour limit. Earlier, even if anyone parked for 2-3 days, they paid only R100,” a senior NDMC official told HT. The decision has been cleared by the Council.

The official said there will be extra charges for parking during night hours and the rates will be decided soon.

A new ‘Parking Policy for Delhi’, approved by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, proposes hiked charges for daytime parking and for peak hours. The rates will vary during weekdays and weekends.

Nearly 80% of Delhi’s parking lots are operated by the municipal corporations, which would play the biggest role in fixing the new rates.

Connaught Place is one of Delhi’s most congested and busiest corners. The Union urban development ministry had in February announced a plan to make Connaught place vehicle-free to decongest the area. But the three-month trial run of the project has been put off indefinitely.

The trial, slated to kick off on February 1, has been postponed due to lack of unanimity over the execution of the plan among the stakeholders, especially the traders, who have opposed the idea.

The plan, given a go-ahead by the Union urban development ministry after extensive talks with NDMC and traffic police officials early January, aimed to decongest the heritage shopping arcade in central Delhi.

Nearly 2,000 parking slots were supposed to be removed, which include 1,500 from the Inner Circle and 400-500 from the Middle Circle.