'Pay & park' back again

'Pay & park' back again
DH News Service, Bangalore:
The controversial 'pay and park' system was back on Wednesday, albeit in a shortened version.

With the High Court giving a stay order on the cancellation of the contract awarded to Iswarya Associates by Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), for two weeks, the men were back to collect fees, but only on the M G Road.

Parking areas near Kids Kemp and Barton Centre on M G Road, saw men in uniforms issuing tickets to people who were parking their two-wheelers and four-wheelers. Other roads like Lavelle Road sported boards saying ‘pay and park’ and included the fee charged: Rs 2 for two-wheelers and Rs 10 for four-wheelers, every hour.

Head of Iswarya Associates, Subramanya said that they would start collecting the fee starting from Thursday on Lavelle Road and cross roads, St Mark’s Road, M G Road, Krishna Temple Road in Indiranagar, Brunton Road, from Kids Kemp on M G Road to Richmond Road, Ali Asker Road, from Jyothi Nivas to 5th main in Koramangala and Miller’s Road. He also said that the court’s stay was for two weeks and they would collect parking fee till the end of that period.


BBMP Additional Commissioner East S Puttaswamy said that the BBMP will file an objection for vacating the stay order on Thursday morning. He also said that BBMP had not surveyed the roads on Wednesday to see if the parking fee were being collected.

‘Collection illegal’

Other BBMP officials pointed out that the collection was not legal, as the tickets being issued by Iswarya Associates to the public, were not issued by the BBMP after the contract was awarded.

“These are old tickets, which are in possession of Iswarya Associates. We haven’t issued any new ones. The serial numbers printed on the tickets have to be approved by the BBMP after the contract has been awarded. But in this case, they are just using the tickets which were used earlier for collecting parking fees,” the official said.