PMC will commence ‘pay and park’ on five major roads on experimental basis
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to start ‘pay and park’ on five major roads on an experimental basis. In the absence of local representatives, the PMC traffic planning department has sent a proposal for the same to the state urban development department for approval.
The PMC introduced a parking policy in 2016 with the aim of decongesting city roads. The standing committee approved the parking policy in 2018.
An official of the traffic planning department said, “After the state government’s instruction, we have sent a proposal asking for permission to implement ‘pay and park’ on five roads which were developed by the PMC under urban street guidelines. We have mentioned five roads in the proposal. After approval, we will implement ‘pay and park’ under the parking policy norms. At present, there is no local representative in the PMC so we have sent the proposal to the state government’s urban development department for approval.”
“We have proposed five roads namely Jangli Maharaj (J M) Road, Fergusson College (F C) Road, High Street Road (Balewadi), North Main Road (Koregaon Park), and Viman Nagar Road,” he said.
The PMC introduced a parking policy in 2016 with the aim of decongesting city roads. The standing committee approved the parking policy in 2018, which included introducing a pay and park facility on major city roads. However, there was no political consensus on the issue so it was not implemented, Finally, it was decided in the general body meeting to form an all-party committee under the chairmanship of mayor Mukta Tilak to study parking policy and file a report in six months.
Under the parking policy, the PMC traffic planning department identified 38 roads. Thereafter, the roads were divided into categories such as commercial, residential, semi-commercial etc. Besides that, the committee discussed a plan to implement pay and park in each state assembly constituency. However, no decision was taken by the committee.
Meanwhile, Parisar, a city-based NGO working toward sustainable development, kept pursuing the issue of implementing the parking policy in the city. During the Covid pandemic, the issue lay idle but thereafter, Ranjit Gadgil, programme director at Parisar, continuously corresponded with the PMC and state government to implement the policy.
After the Lok Sabha elections, the state government wrote a letter to the PMC and asked it to submit a report regarding the parking policy. Gadgil said, “After continuously pursuing the parking policy issue for more than five years, the state government finally sent a letter to convey its stance on the parking policy. As per last week’s discussion with PMC officials, they have finalised five roads for implementing the pay and park scheme on an experimental basis.”
Chosen stretches
- JM Road
- FC Road
- High Street Road (Balewadi)
- North Main Road (Koregaon Park)
- Vimannagar Road
As per the proposal approved by the standing committee, the city has been divided into three zones based on the level of congestion — central business district areas, mobility corridors, and the rest. The parking charges will be different for the periods from 8 am to 10 pm and 10 pm to 8 am. For two-wheelers, the hourly charges will be a minimum ₹2 and a maximum ₹4 for on-street parking while they will be a minimum ₹1 and a maximum ₹3 for off-street parking. For the night, the charges will be fixed and not on an hourly basis.
