Nearly 50 cars parked overnight on the roads of New Alipore in southwest Kolkata were clamped as part of a drive against “illegal parking” by a team of police and civic officials on Tuesday night.
Most of these cars were either parked along kerbs or in front of garages in parts of New Alipore that have been declared “no parking zone” by the police, civic officials said.
Senior officials in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) said the civic body had decided to conduct drives against illegal parking across the city.
“One has to seek permission from the KMC to park his vehicle on roads and has to pay a fee for that. Our teams will clamp vehicles parked illegally. One has to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 to get his or her vehicle released,” said Debasish Kumar, mayoral council member in charge of parking.
“All the vehicles that were clamped were illegally parked.”
A resident of New Alipore Block G who had parked his car on the footpath in front of his garage was alerted by the man who washes his car every day that his WagonR had been clamped.
“I never thought my car would be clamped in front of my garage. The footpath has been repaired several times and now it is at a much higher level than the garage. So I find it convenient to keep it on the footpath, like many of my neighbours,” said the resident.
He said he found a chit attached to the windscreen that had the address of 15 treasury offices of the KMC. The fine had to be paid at any one of the offices to get back the vehicle.
He paid Rs 1,000 at the KMC market office in New Alipore around 11am. A KMC employee turned up around 2pm to remove the clamp.
“I couldn’t use my car even after paying the fine. I have to find a solution to the problem posed by the raised height of the pavement. Who knows when they will attack my car again?” he said.
Several other cars were found clamped at the Triangular Park in New Alipore on Wednesday morning.
Police said the drive was conducted by the car parking department of the KMC.
Last month, the KMC and the city police had jointly conducted a night drive against illegal parking and clamped 62 two-wheelers in and around Ballygunge.
“We have decided that such drives would be carried out four times a week across Kolkata,” Kumar said. “Teams would be moving around at night and clamping vehicles parked illegally.”