Island city may soon get parking spaces on streets

Come May and BMC will introduce a new on-street parking system that is expected to decongest roads in the island city. The corporation is assessing the number of streets that will come under the new system, following which parking permits will be issued to residents of old buildings in south Mumbai.

"We are drawing up a list of roads where we can accommodate cars on one side. The plan should be ready by May. These will be reserved spots for residents of old buildings who don't have parking space on their premises," said additional municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta on Wednesday.

BMC is toying with the idea of barcodes on permits for on-street parking. It will help traffic police identify cases of illegal parking. Gupta said, "We will integrate on-street parking with a web-based system so that police can track suspicious vehicles easily."

Through the web-based system, computerised parking receipts will be issued and data will be immediately transferred to a central server.

Gupta said they will charge a fee for on-street parking permits. This will be higher than charges for parking in the 47 reserved public lots in the island city. "We will see how many cars can be accommodated on a street and issue permits accordingly. We do not want to auction the permits, though it will be profitable. We are seeing how the plan can be implemented fairly; a family will be allotted space to park one vehicle," said Gupta.

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