A stretch of Calcutta that many of the city’s residents are compelled to visit is a place where the parking mafia is running an unchecked reign for months.
Outside the passport office behind Ruby hospital, the minimum rate for parking a car is Rs 100, The Telegraph was told twice in a week, on Wednesday and on Friday.
If a vehicle owner refused to pay the amount, they were told they would not be allowed to park a car again in the zone. Those parking two-wheelers were told the minimum rate was Rs 40.
Helpless visitors, some of whom come in self-driven cars, quietly give in to the demand without knowing that the money was being raised illegally.
The Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), the custodian of the road, has not allotted parking management rights of the road to any agency after the tenure of the previous agency ended recently, said a senior official.
Metro highlights all that is wrong with what is happening on this road under the nose of the authorities
Who is collecting the fee?
“Monu-da from Park Circus runs the parking lot. We are all his staff,” a parking attendant said on Friday after this correspondent refused to pay the rate he demanded.
A resident of Ballygunge who went to the passport office on Wednesday said she was told the same name when she refused to pay Rs 100 for keeping her car.
Some attendants wore T-shirts of Prestige Fee Car Parking Society.
While enquiring with government officials on Saturday whether anyone had the rights to manage parking outside the passport office, this correspondent received a call from a man named Biswarup Bose, who identified himself as the owner of Prestige Fee Car Parking Society.
“Someone must have sought extra money from you. It is a stray incident. One or two persons may have done this,” Bose brazenly said.
Is the government earning any revenue?
No. Two senior officials of the CMDA said on Saturday that no agency owns the right to manage parking on this road behind the passport office. The gate one has to use to report for a passport interview is on this road.
The CMDA had issued the rights to an agency but its tenure has ended. “At present whatever money is being collected from car owners is being done illegally,” said the CMDA official.
Parking attendants on the road on Friday. Bishwarup Dutta
An agency that wins the right to manage parking along a road has to pay an amountto the government agency that is the custodian of the road.If the agency continues to collect money after the tenure has ended, it means the government is losing revenue and those collecting money from car owners are pocketing it.
Bose said he had the rights to manage the parking on the road till October 2022. But the CMDA officials denied this. “The tenure of the last agency has ended,” said an official.
The rate being charged
The parking attendants told The Telegraph that any car owner who parks there has to pay Rs 100, which is the rate for two hours. “You can be here for five minutes or two hours. You have to pay Rs 100. This is the minimum rate here,” said the attendant on Friday.
What was being charged was ten times the actual parking rate, which is Rs 10 an hour for cars, said a CMDA official.
No rate chart
What made the operation of the parking mafia easier was the absence of any board displaying the parking rates.
The Ballygunge resident said when she refused to pay, the attendant threatened her saying he would not allow her to park her car again on that road.
“For a moment I thought what if I have to come back, how will I park my car? No board displayed the rates, so I was confused whether I should challenge him,” she said.
Receipt? No
Refusing to budge, the Ballygunge resident asked for a receipt mentioning she had paid Rs 100.
“The attendant told me everyone knows that on this road no receipt is given against any payment,” she said.
None found guilty
An officer of Anandapur police station said theCMDA had earlier sought the police’s assistance to nab the culprits.
“We went with CMDA officials during a visit to the place but they told us they could not identify the accused,” said the officer.
A CMDA official said they spoke to the parking attendants but could not find out who was behind the racket. “We also spoke to the local councillor,” said the official.
Sushanta Ghosh, councillor of Ward 108 of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, told The Telegraph that when the CMDA approached him, he told them to “specify how many cars can be parked on a stretch”.
“The CMDA said cars can be parked on roads adjacent to EM Bypass. I asked them to be specific. I also told them to mention the car parking rates, which they have not done,” he said.