Planning to buy a car? You may need to show parking space

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, July 16

Residents in the city planning to buy a new car will have to show proof that they have adequate parking space for it if a new draft policy of the Department of Urban Planning gets approval from the Administration.

Sources said the department had prepared the parking policy with an aim to regulate the parking chaos in residential and commercial areas of the city. The policy proposed various provisions to discourage people from buying more cars than required and to promote public transport.

The city with the highest per capita vehicles has posed a major challenge to the Administration and the civic body to tackle the parking chaos. The parking situation in some southern sectors has reached alarming proportions where chaos outside residential areas is the order of the day.

According to the proposal, no vehicle should be registered without a certificate regarding availability of adequate parking space. The certificate will be issued by the plan approval wings of the MC and the Administration.  

An officer said views from the other departments concerned would be sought before finalising the policy.

Jagdish Arora, chairman of the Chandigarh Business Council, supported the proposal and said such measures,  coupled with improvement in the public transport infrastructure, would help free public space and reduce pollution.

Link rent with parking space 

It has also been also proposed to fix rent according to the parking space. The rent should be reduced in case the landlords do not provide parking place to tenants. Other measures proposed include making community parking in sectors mandatory and enhancing the parking fee.