A year from now, you may be able to get your car registered only if you have ample parking space within the premises of your house. Those who plan to park on the road in front of their house may not be able to get their cars registered.
The State Transport Department, which is working on restricting the increasing number of private vehicles in urban areas, is contemplating bringing in such a rule.
Transport Minister D.C. Thammanna told reporters on Wednesday that it had become essential to bring in certain stringent restrictions, including limiting the total number of diesel car registrations to a certain number a year, to tackle the increasing traffic and parking problems in urban areas.
“But before that, we will advocate and encourage people to carpool and use public transport instead of private transport. We will take this up as a campaign for the next one year in co-ordination with the Urban Development Department. If the response from people is not favourable, it will become inevitable for us to impose restrictions. We will take people’s opinion before that,” the Minister said. To reduce traffic congestion in the core city area of Bengaluru and to ensure last-mile connectivity through public transport to commuters, a proposal has been submitted to the government to integrate Namma Metro services with Transport Department’s services, the Minister said.
“Although metro has made commuting easier for people, some metro corridor endpoints do not have BMTC and KSRTC feeder service. This makes it inevitable for people to use private vehicles. There is a need to integrate these services to plan properly,” he said.
He said the department was also planning to request the government to share with it a portion of the money collected through registration of vehicles.
Announcement on free bus pass soon
The government is likely to provide free bus pass facility for students and a decision in this regard may be announced soon, the Transport Minister said.
The free bus pass scheme for students was announced by the former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the last budget of the Congress government earlier this year. Pointing out that the Finance Department was yet to give its concurrence to the scheme, set to cost ₹629 crore annually to the State exchequer, Mr. Thammanna said his department was ready to bear 15% of the 25% cost presently borne by beneficiaries.
In the wake of the State road transport corporations working on the modalities of revising fares by 15% owing to increasing fuel price, Mr. Thammanna maintained that he was not keen on hiking bus fares.
He, however, said he would discuss the issue with Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy during the budget meeting scheduled for June 27 and 28.
