Cars with boards declaring that they were on government duty and those fitted with beacons are still being parked in front of the arrival terminal of the airport for a much longer duration than allowed.
The Telegraph spotted several such cars parked outside the terminal for more than an hour early on Tuesday.
A police vehicle with a blue beacon atop was parked outside gate 2 for nearly an hour from 1.15am. Near gate 5, a car with a ‘Government of India’ board remained parked for an even longer duration.
Close to the two cars were ‘no-parking’ boards, which stated that vehicles would be fined Rs 3,000 for parking.
A car belonging to the Airports Authority of India arrived for an inspection around 2.20am on Tuesday, said a man who had gone to the airport to receive a passenger arriving on an international flight.
An official of the airport’s traffic management department got off the vehicle and prosecuted a private car that did not have any board or beacon.
“The official overlooked the police vehicle and the one with the ‘Government of India’ board. When I confronted him and asked why there were two sets of rules, he said government cars were allowed to park there,” said a man who had come to the airport to pick up a relative.
The official, however, could not cite any order allowing parking of government vehicles in front of the terminal.
This newspaper has reported several times how government and beacon-fitted vehicles flout rules on the airport premises. They remain parked in the no-parking zone as hardly any action is taken against them.
This results in chaos outside the terminal whenever multiple flights land around the same time.
Most of these government and beacon fitted vehicles turn up at least an hour or more before the flight of the person they are supposed to ferry land. Most drivers leave their cars in front of the terminal and spend time elsewhere.
An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said parking was managed by the airport authorities but the police, too, could fine errant vehicles.
When asked why cops were not seen near ‘VIP vehicles’ parked in front of the terminal, he said junior officers and constables tend to stay away from such vehicles.
“I had to pay Rs 100 to park my car in the parking area, whereas these government vehicles flout rule and the drivers don’t pay any money. They are not even fined,” said a Kolkatan who was at the airport on Monday night.
A senior official of the Kolkata airport told this newspaper that government cars and those fitted with beacons had been allotted parking space behind gates 1A and 1B, near the bus terminus.
“Only a few people are parked in the designated area. Drivers of the government cars and those with beacons do not listen to our officials even if they are asked to move away,” said the official. “We have told the police several times about what is happening.”
Whenever a car enters the airport, it is issued a slip that mentions the time of entry. Vehicles are allowed to stay on the airport premises for 10 minutes. If any car stays for a longer period, marshals deployed by the private agency that runs the airport’s parking lot are to collect a fine of Rs 400 from the driver, said an airport official.
Else, while exiting the airport, a driver has to produce the parking payment receipt as a proof that the car was not in the no-parking zone.