LAHORE – As Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif loses interest, the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) has suspended the meter parking system at four places, which was designed to resolve parking problems and overcharging issues, Pakistan Today has learnt.
After the successful installation of the meter parking system at the Liberty Market and from the Shahdin Manzil to Mazjid-e-Shuhda, a plan was on the cards to install the system at Anarkali Bazaar, Panorama Centre, Lahore High Court Road and Shahrah-e-Aiwan-e-Iqbal. But the CDGL rolled back the move without consulting traders, a senior CDGL official told Pakistan Today.
“The basic reason of putting the plan on the backburner is that the CM dropped the meter parking system, also called the computerised parking network, from his priority list leaving Lahoris in a limbo,” he added. At the time of its launch, the official said, the CM had praised the digital parking system but all rhetoric faded dramatically. After the CM lost interest, the CDGL did not sanction a single penny to launch the system at Anarkali in its budget for 2010-11 estimating income at Rs 18096.815 million against expenditures of Rs 18069.495 million, leaving Rs 27.32 million as surplus amount, he explained.
DO (Public Facility) Tanveer Ahmed Khan who also has additional charge of EDO (Community and Development) said that the plan was not afoot to install meter parking system at Anarkali. “The CDGL is not going to do so due to lack of funds,” he clarified but denied shelving the project.
On a question that ticketing machines have turned dysfunctional over the last many days at the Mall, he said that for want of technical staff, the CDGL had discontinued the operation and decided to auction the system.
According to sources in the Lahore district coordination officer (DCO) office, CDGL initiated a survey to install high-tech metered parking system at Anarkali, one of the oldest and busiest shopping places, to solve the issues of lack of parking space and overcharging at parking stands.
The Department of Public Facility of CDGL constituted a survey team, which visited Anarkali to draft the feasibility report to execute the project. The survey team carried out the mapping and demarcation of the area to acquire an accurate estimate of the parking space required.
With implementation of the project, CDGL had to set parking rates for different time durations. The survey recommended that a parking ticket of Rs 10 will be charged for the first hour while Rs 5 will be charged after each hour.
“For the whole day, a ticket of Rs 50 will be issued. A ticket of Rs 200 will be fixed as the parking fee for a whole week. Local traders and shopkeepers will have to pay Rs 20 per day for the service. In case of a violation, Rs 50 to Rs 500 will be charged as a fine. Motorcycles will be exempted from the computerised parking fee,” the recommendation added.
According to the report, ticket machines to be installed at Anarkali will be battery-operated. The machines will be supported by solar power instead of electricity in case of power breakdowns. The CDGL also decided to invite all international and national firms to participate in the pre-qualification bidding process.
Ghulam Hussain, a shopkeeper at Anarkali, termed the move as counterproductive. “The meter parking system had to end the highhandedness of those fleecing the people at parking stands and winding up the project will again leave us at the mercy of the overcharging mafia,” he added.
Rafiq Gondal, another shopkeeper, said that the meter parking system was effective, which not only helped to make the most out of the space available but, also utilised time in the best possible way while maintaining discipline.
Some shopkeepers at Liberty Market blasted the parking system, saying it negatively impacted clients that visited one of the biggest markets in the city, as customers had been forced to shop quickly to reduce the extra parking fee. They said that most of their customers were from the upper and middle class, and are neither used to, nor could afford to pay a higher fee on an hourly basis.
