The Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation on Wednesday started a much-delayed crackdown on illegal parking lots in the city’s cinema theatres, hospitals, and other commercial establishments. The move was following complaints from various quarters on these establishments charging money from customers for parking their vehicles on the premises, in violation of the Kerala Municipal Building Rules (KMBR).
Parking lots in most of the major theatres and a few major private hospitals were raided, parking coupons seized, and notices served on those concerned. Deputy Mayor Happy Kumar told The Hindu that stringent action would be taken if they continued to collect fee from their customers.
“None of the commercial establishments are authorised to collect parking fees from their customers. Be it a theatre, a hospital or a textile, they are providing a service to the customers and providing them parking facility free-of-cost is a necessity. But in the city, almost all such building owners are openly flouting the rules. This is unacceptable,” Mr. Happy Kumar said.
According to the KMBR, permits can be allocated to a commercial establishment only if it has adequate parking space in proportion to the area of the building. Private parking lots, independent of buildings, need to take a license from the local body by paying the licence fee.
Mr. Happy Kumar said even government theatres were playing against the rules.
“Some theatres have given contracts to private parties for running their parking lots. They have even printed parking coupons with the theatre’s name on it. All of these were seized. Some textile shops have bought land nearby and are letting customers to park their vehicles there. But if they are found to be charging for the services, then action will be taken against them too. In case of hospitals, the customers including bystanders and visitors who are always in a hurry end up paying whatever amount the attendants ask,” he said.
While most of the Corporation’s parking spaces in the city charged Rs.3 for bikes and Rs.10 for cars, the parking lots in commercial establishments charged much more than that, sources said.
