‘Parking space for 3 lakh vehicles can be created at max’

CHENNAI: While listening to a plea filed by a 60-year-old charted accountant Vandana Zachariah emphasizing on proper maintenance of pavements across the city and not letting them to be used as a parking space or getting encroached by shopkeepers and hawkers, on November 19, G Prakash, Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation told the Madras High Court about the parking spaces the corporation can come up with at any given point. He said, around 54 lakh two-wheelers and 11.75 lakh four-wheelers are there in the city. And, the corporation can develop on street parking facilities for a maximum of 1.5 lakh vehicles and off street parking of another 1.5 lakh vehicles.

Prakash told the division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee that around 65 locations in the city had been identified for developing parking spaces. In the first phase at Broadway, a multi-level parking lot for 1400 vehicles, along with some commercial space had been planned. Presently, Chennai has the capacity to park only 12000 vehicles on the streets, Prakash added.

The Municipal Commissioner explained the steps taken by the corporation to address the problems highlighted by the litigant to the High Court when summoned. Prakash said that the civic body has planned to tie up with a private agency which shall ensure that the newly-developed pavements under the Smart City project in Pondy Bazaar at T Nagar here were maintained well.

The private partner will work in association with the corporation and with the police authorities to ensure that there is no encroachment or parking of vehicles on pavements. Prakash added that after studying the worth of the move, the scheme of engaging the services of such private agencies would be extended across Chennai.

Concerning the hawkers issue, the Commissioner told the bench that listing of vendors in all 15 zones of the corporation has been completed.  It would take a year for complete implementation of the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act of 2014, after designating vending and no-vending zones, added the Commissioner.

Post listening and recording the submissions from the corporation, the High Court directed the Commissioner to ensure that pavements were no more used for parking vehicles and asked him to file a status report by December 18.