There’s no parking utility in this building

There’s no parking utility in this building
The Times of India

Bangalore: Welcome to the state’s tallest skyscraper, the Public Utility Building. Where you can eminently park your car in a choked-for-space basement at 8 am, zip off to ITPL and fetch the vehicle some 12 hours later!

Where there is a sole entrance and exit for the passage of vehicles, where fire extinguishers are in place but nobody knows how to use them, where — should an accident happen — the entire basement would be gutted.

Of the 24 floors in the building, there are many government offices and one hundred shops. In the 90s, the fire force department had declared that the building was “unsafe for fire escape’’, and accordingly, the BCC had installed fire extinguishers, provided pipes and constructed a fire exit staircase at a cost of Rs 1.7 crore.

However, the biggest menace plaguing the building is a screaming lack of parking space. The basement is designed to take 100 cars but shop-owners vouch that 200 cars are crammed into the dingy basement. Worse, many people commuting to ITPL, reportedly park their cars there in the morning before hopping on to their pickup vans near Mayo Hall.

They return at the end of the day to fetch it, having struck a nifty deal with the unauthorised parking attendant for anywhere between Rs 350-Rs 500 a month.

Automated ticketing system:
To streamline the chaotic parking system, the Public Utility Building Shopping Complex Traders Association has come up with a proposal to introduce the automated parking system, like at the Forum Mall. Explains association president Abdul Azeez: “The BCC, for no reason, blocked the entrance from Residency Road via the car-park. The proposal we made is on a 60:40 basis for the association and the BCC respectively. Fourwheelers would be charged Rs 10 per hour and two-wheelers Rs 5 per hour. When they come in, they would be issued a parking ticket and later on producing the same, they will have to pay the requisite amount.’’

The proposal, mooted a few months ago, is pending with the BCC. Additional commissioner (finance) P.K. Srihari says: “It is under consideration of some committees and most likely will take off soon.’’

Back to the chaos until then.

IT’S JUNK
Twenty government vehicles parked for three years, untouched. The vehicles have been snoring at the Public Utility Building’s basement for the past three years.

According to shop-owners, 20 vehicles belonging to various government agencies have parked cars for the three years without as much touching them.

A dozen Ambassadors and some Contessas occupy ample parking space, rusting and gathering dust. Old-timers say the vehicles belong to Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and Karnataka Silk Industries Corporation.