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Metro parking contractors opt out

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI FEB. 7. The parking lot contracts for Metro stations have become the first casualty of lower than expected ridership on the system. Barring the Shastri Park station, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has been forced to re-tender contracts for all the other five stations on the Shahdara-Tis Hazari corridor as the bidders had opted out due to lower expectation of returns.

According to a senior official in the Property Development wing of DMRC, those who had bid for the parking contracts withdrew when they found that barring the rush witnessed during the first few days of operations, the Metro was not attracting people anywhere its capacity of 2 lakh passengers trips per day.

``The ridership of around 50,000 was almost one-fourth of what was being mandated for the system. So the parking contractors realised that the business volumes would not be up their expectations. And while the contractor for Shastri Park went through as per the bid, all others opted out, forfeiting their deposit money.''

But forfeiture of deposits has not swelled the coffers of DMRC. On the contrary, the revision of tenders has meant lesser amount of assured money for them. Also the process of tendering, which was taken up much before the launch of the Metro service on December 24, has dragged. All over again tenders were issued for the five stations and prospective bidders have been called to put in their bids on Rs. 1,000 non-refundable forms which were sold between January 13 and January 17. The forms were to be submitted till January 27 along with a deposit of Rs. 50,000. .

However, though re-tendering has led to monetary loss to DMRC, it has provided extra benefit to the customers in the form of an addition to the clause on "parking charges''. In order to bolster the sale of the smart cards, which found less than 5,000 takers during the first month of operations, DMRC has allowed for concession of parking up to 12 hours on a charge of 4 hours duration to those possessing Smart Cards.

This facility is also aimed at promoting travel by personal vehicle owners on Metro. The idea being that they come to the station in their own vehicle, park it there, take the Metro for reaching their destination and return via the Metro after completing the work.

The scheme would ultimately also reduce congestion on the roads and encourage people to use the hassle-free Metro for a comfortable ride, said the official.

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