Agencies managing parking bays along Calcutta’s roads will be fined Rs 10,000 if they are found to be not using point of sales (POS) machines while collecting parking fees.
This is a condition that the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) will include in an e-tender for allotting parking management rights in the city, said a CMC official.
The tender will be uploaded on the CMC’s website by the end of this month.
The right to manage parking space for over 15,000 cars will be on offer.
In January, the CMC had floated a tender to manage parking in the city, but the process was scrapped as it was found to have violated rules set by the state government.
The rules say that for tenders with a value of Rs 1 lakh or more, submission of bids must be done electronically. But the CMC opted for the manual mode.
If current process goes through, it will be the first time since 2013-14 that the CMC will make a fresh allocation of management rights of parking bays.
According to one official, the plan is to stop cash payments altogether.
“We have kept a condition in the e-tender that any agency that takes cash payment and does not use POS machines while collecting parking fees will be fined Rs 10,000 per instance of violation,” said the official.
The POS machines have been configured in a way that they can register the time of entry of a vehicle into a parking zone and the time of its exit. When the time of exit is entered into the machine, it will automatically generate a receipt that will mention the fee to be paid.
CMC officials said using POS machines would cut down or, maybe, even stop fleecing by parking zone attendants, who are accused of charging more than the stipulated rates.
The use of POS machines was introduced across the city months ago, but the CMC has found that 11 of the 54 agencies that now manage parking on city’s roads have not procured a single POS machine. The CMC is yet to act against them.
Civic officials had said while introducing POS machines in April that all cash payments would be stopped. POS machines were configured to accept card and UPI payments. It also had the option of remote payment by sending links to phone numbers of someone not present at the parking site.
But many Calcuttans have told this newspaper that attendants almost everywhere in the city have been taking only cash payments and charging much more than the stipulated rates.
CMC sources have said they are waiting to allocate the rights after a fresh tender, following which they will be stricter in enforcing the rule related to the use of POS machines.
CMC officials believe the electronic submission of bids will make the process more competitive.
Bagging management rights for parking bays have always been fraught with tension. At least once in the past, parking agencies had removed the box where bids were to be submitted, foiling the CMC’s attempt to select new agencies. Electronic submission could end muscle-flexing by some traditional players and encourage new agencies to bid.
Tenders for distributing civic parking lots in the city were last floated in 2013-14. Successful bidders were assigned parking lots for two years, but the duration was extended every subsequent year.