Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to hike parking fees across the city and the new rates are at least double the current ones. For cars that remain parked for over five hours, the revised parking fee is 10 times the existing rate. The new rates are likely to be effective from December, said Debashis Kumar, mayoral council member in charge of the KMC’s parking department.
The new rate four-wheelers is Rs 20 per hour for the first two hours. The current rate is Rs 10 an hour from 7am to 10pm, though parking attendants at many places charge more in violation of rules.
According to the new rates, the parking fee for cars is Rs 40 an hour from the third till the fifth hour. Thereafter, the rate will be Rs 100 an hour. The existing rates are uniform, while the new ones are graded. Now, a car owner or driver has to pay Rs 10 an hour from 7am to 10pm, irrespective of the number of hours it remains parked. From 10pm to 7am, the rate is Rs 30 an hour.
The owners of only a handful of cars pay the night parking fee, KMC officials said. As for two-wheelers, the current rate is Rs 5 an hour, irrespective of the number of hours a vehicle remains parked during the day.
According to the new rate, the parking fee for a two-wheeler is Rs 10 an hour for the first two hours. From the third till the fifth hour, the rate is Rs 20 an hour. For every hour beyond that, one has to pay Rs 50. “We have decided to increase the parking rates. The hourly rate has doubled for cars from Rs 10 to Rs 20 for the first two hours. Thereafter, there are various slabs,” mayoral council member Kumar said.
“The new rates are expected to come into effect in December.” This is the first hike in parking fees in at least 12 years in Kolkata, Kumar said.
A KMC official said the reason behind such a sharp spike in car parking fees was to discourage people from bringing their cars into the city to prevent air pollution. People will be forced to avail themselves of public transport if they have work for a long duration, as the new parking fees are very high for cars that will remain parked for more than five hours, the official said. This, he said, will reduce per capita carbon emission. The official said many owners unnecessarily keep their cars parked at a spot for hours, denying space to others.
“Once the new rates come into effect, we hope more parking slots will be available,” he said. The rates for buses and goods vehicles, too, have been increased. The new rates are uniform across the city, a decision that some Kolkatans said should be changed. The demand for parking in Park Street and Mukundapur cannot be the same, they said. The number of cars moving in central Kolkata is much more than the number of cars along the border of the Kolkata municipal area.
“A proposal to hike the parking fees was placed before the mayoral council, the highest decision-making body of the KMC, on Wednesday and it was passed,” said a KMC official. The mayoral council had taken a decision to hike parking fees in 2019 as well but it could not be implemented because of a “lack of political will”, another official said.