Chandigarh facility suffers losses
Chandigarh: The first multi-level parking in the city, which was inaugurated with much fanfare on May 9, was shut after operating for three months.
Since the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, which suffered a loss of Rs 15 lakh in these three months by running the facility, could not float new tenders on time, the parking lot was shut.
While the Congress targeted Mayor Arun Sood for the failure of the multi-level parking, Sood said financially it was not viable to run the parking lot.
Meanwhile, an agenda to take a call on it will come up for discussion at a meeting of the Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) on August 12. Till then, the parking lot will remain closed.
The MC engineering wing took control of the machines installed at the parking lot after which the lot was shut.
Due to poor planning and a weak financial model, the MC was suffering a loss of Rs 5 lakh per month at the lot.
The MC was paying the contractor Rs 6.2 lakh a month for managing the parking lot. In return, the MC was collecting a revenue of only around Rs 1 lakh per month from the parking of vehicles, which was resulting in a loss of nearly Rs 5 lakh per month.
Against the 800 vehicles daily, which the multi-level parking got in the first three days, later only 100 to 200 vehicles were being parked on an average daily. The multi-level parking can accommodate 931 vehicles.
The multi-level parking was inaugurated by Punjab and Haryana Governor-cum-UT Administrator Kaptan Singh Solanki on May 9. The project was constructed at a cost of Rs 47 crore.
The Chandigarh MC had passed an agenda at a Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) meeting on July 14 to give advertisement rights on the surface as well as the basement of the parking and invite bids for the operation of the multi-level parking accordingly.
However, the UT Chief Architect gave permission for advertisement rights in the basement only.
Leakage from the roof of the multi-level parking had damaged three cars parked there.
After the inauguration of the multi-level parking, the MC had closed two parking lots — Empire Store and Sahib Singh parking — in Sector 17 to popularise the new parking facility. However, traders had opposed the MC move and launched a protest against its decision.
Former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Harmohan Dhawan, eight BJP-SAD councillors and the Congress had also supported the traders. Finally, the MC gave in to the pressure on May 16 and reopened these two parking lots.
Since then, the figures of parking of vehicles at the multi-level parking were going down, resulting in a loss of revenue to the civic body.
