A new agency has been awarded the contract for managing parking and movement of vehicles at the airport but the old problem of allowing some vehicles — both government and private — to remain parked for more than the stipulated time without paying a fine continues.
Several such vehicles were seen parked outside the terminal building at the arrival level for hours on Sunday, making a mockery of the no- parking board that asserts that any violation would attract a fine of Rs 400.
Metro has reported on several occasions earlier how vehicles of government departments or ones flaunting VIP stickers were unofficially guaranteed unlimited time in front of the terminal.
Parking marshals engaged by the agency in charge are supposed to check the tokens issued by the booths at the entrance mentioning the time of entry. But the practice of allowing some vehicles to remain parked for long without paying any penalty continues from the regime of the earlier agency to that of the current one.
The Delhi-based Mahesh Sunny Enterprises is now in charge of running the parking lot of the airport.
Nobody could be seen checking the tokens of the cars that pulled up in front of the terminal on Sunday and many remained parked there for much longer than the stipulated three minutes.
Cars fitted with beacon lights or boards naming a government department flouted the rule with impunity.
The boards installed by the airport authorities with “Fine Rs 400 beyond three minutes dwell time and seven minutes running time” written in bright red and yellow were blatantly ignored by the drivers of these cars.
Cars were seen standing right next to the no-parking boards with no policeman or marshal around to check them.
“Dwell time” refers to how long a vehicle can remain in front of the terminal building without paying a fee and “running time” denotes the time taken to travel to and from the terminal. Calcutta airport sources, however, said only the total time a car spent on the airport premises would be taken into account as there was no mechanism to ascertain the “dwell time” and the “running time” separately.
A man seated at a counter in the parking lot who also acts as a parking marshal said the the drivers of “VIP” cars usually parked their vehicles in the first lane outside the terminal building.
“Most of them drive in at least an hour before the pick-up time. They then lock the car and go away. We don’t dare to say anything as these cars either have beacons or boards announcing that they are government vehicles,” the marshal said.
An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said parking was the responsibility of the airport authorities but the police, too, could fine vehicles that flouted rules.
Babulal Yadav, the general manager of Mahesh Sunny Enterprises, said he did not have adequate manpower to check every car. “Our men go around and fine vehicles. We are trying to get more men on the job,” he said.
A senior airport official said the drivers of vehicles fitted with beacons and government boards rarely pay heed to parking marshals. “The police should take care of these vehicles,” he said.