Car pool or cough up fine

Car pool or cough up fine
BY AMIT S. UPADHYE
BENGALURU


Article Rank





[Click To Enlarge]
The government proposes to make car pooling compulsory in high-density work areas in the city.

According to plans being drawn up by the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority, employees at companies that use over 1,000 vehicles will have to pay a fine for driving alone.

BMLTA officials told Deccan Chronicle that the proposal will soon be forwarded to the city traffic police for implementation.

The BMLTA, after consult ing with many ITeS (Information Technology Enbaled Services) companies and government departments, has identified certain clusters — ITPL, Manyata Tech Park, Electronic City, Bannerghatta Road and some parts of the central business district — where organisations use more than 1,000 cars.

The BMLTA will offer an alternative for those who don’t want to car pool. “A periodic tax similar to congestion charge or road tax will be made mandatory for those who wish to use a car alone,” the officials said.

“As a first step, we are hold ing talks with ITeS companies and studying the possibility of enforcing car-pooling. The enforcement will target a particular audience and fines will be on par with traffic violations,” a BMLTA official said.

“Apart from identifying new clusters with vehicle population of over 1,000 fourwheelers, the study will also include security and other modalities for the scheme,” the official added.

There have been number of instances in the past where the traffic police and the ITeS companies had introduced car pooling, but the success rate was very low. There are close to 7 lakh cars in the city, nearly 40 per cent of which are used in the work clusters that have been identified.