Visitors raise questions over conditions printed on parking slips

No sooner the municipal corporation (MC) handed over five paid parking lots to contractors on Saturday, visitors started raising questions over slips being issued by the contractor at the Feroze Gandhi market. Although, the MC had announced the introduction of e-ticketing for parking of vehicles, the contractors are reportedly issuing slips with their own conditions printed on them.

One of the contentious conditions printed on the slip issued by the Feroze Gandhi market contractor mentions that in case a parked vehicle is "lost", he will be liable to pay only a fourth of its cost after three months of the incident. The MC officials, however, said there was no such condition mentioned in the agreement, and the compensation has to be provided as per terms of the actual contract.

The visitors want the civic body to clarify all the conditions and display them on boards at all parking lots -- Feroze Gandhi market, Ferozepur Road, main market and Block-1 market of Sarabha Nagar and multilevel parking near Mata Rani Chowk.
Colonel Harjap Singh (retired), chairman of the Traders and Property Owners' Association, Feroze Gandhi market, said: "The MC should make the conditions laid down in the contract clear. If any vehicle is lost, it is the contractor's responsibility to pay up its actual cost. I have been demanding the formation of a monitoring committee to deal with such issues at parking lots, but the MC has ignored it."

In May this year, the MC had received financial bids amounting to `1.48 crore for five parking lots, but it failed to hand over these to the contractors concerned on time. However, the e-ticketing system is yet to be launched.

Claiming that the matter would be looked into, MC superintendent (headquarters) Harvinder Singh said: "Contractors are issuing temporary slips as of now. They will start issuing e-tickets very soon."