Ruling BJP not in favor of Pune municipal corporation’s parking policy in its current form

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not in a mood to accept the parking policy as proposed by the municipal commissioner Kunal Kumar. The municipal commissioner had prepared the parking policy for the city and had proposed an increase in parking charges for two and four-wheelers. BJP’s city unit president Yogesh Gogawale said that BJP will not accept the parking policy proposed by the municipal commissioner in its current form.

Kumar tabled it in front of the standing committee for approval but the committee has still not taken a decision on it and has been postponing it since the last two weeks.

Gogawale also said that BJP is of the view that the common man mainly uses two-wheelers and without making the public transport good, it would be wrong to levy heavy parking fees. 

BJP will ensure that there are no changes in the parking rates in the city and the party would not allow charging of parking fees for two-wheelers in the city, he added. 

He said that there are many amenity spaces in the city and BJP will seek details from the administration. The ruling party wants to construct more parking lots at these spaces.

While preparing the parking policy, PMC’s target is to encourage a shift from usage of personal vehicles to using the public transport in the city.

The PMC believes that abundant parking supply means rise in private vehicles in the city and that the rising vehicle population will lead to parking space crunch in future. 

The PMC parking policy document states that parking is an essential component of the transport system. As per the document, a vehicle runs for one hour on an average and is parked for 23 hours in a day. It is also important to consider that a typical vehicle usually needs three different parking spaces — one at the owner’s residence, second at owner’s office or business place and third at recreational or entertainment facility. The rising numbers of vehicles in Pune city are likely to lead to 4.5 lakh parking spaces every year. 

The rising number of vehicles would soon make parking a public nuisance issue. Considering this, the PMC parking policy aims to change the mindset of the provision of parking. “Creation of parking space and land required for that is extremely valuable and no resident has the right to its free use,” states the report.

The new parking policy proposed by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), if agreed upon by the standing committee, will levy heavy charges for parking in the city. The parking charges for four-wheelers have been proposed between ₹50 and ₹100 per hour and ₹10 to ₹20 per hour for two-wheelers. The high rates have been proposed by the PMC across the city to discourage vehicles from coming into the city owing to the shrinking parking space.