Up in arms against the revival of the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation’s practice of collecting money for parking vehicles in front of shops on Eluru Road, owners of the commercial establishments staged protests on Saturday.
Demonstrators led by representatives of the Tax Payers’ Association (TPA) raised slogans demanding the corporation immediately stop the ‘strange practice’, which is commonly used area by pedestrians and visitors to the shops. Eluru Road has hundreds of small and large establishments running over decades.
TPA secretary M.V. Anjaneyulu said the VMC had resorted to collecting parking fee a couple of years ago and then stopped it owing to backlash from locals. “Again twenty days ago, the practice has been revived and boards reading ‘VMC paid parking’ were put up on either side of the Eluru Road. This is merely an anti-people exercise of earning money”, he added.
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The more worrying factor is that cars are being parked in front of the shops obstructing the way to the shops. “The vehicle owners who pay for parking are not reluctant to park their vehicles including cars right in front our entrances. If we ask them to park a little away leaving way for the shop, they refuse saying they are paying for it. We as well as the contractors are helpless about this,” said G. Vinay owner of Hema Melodies besides Hotel Raj Towers.
“We have been running this shop here since 30 years and never faced such situation. Each and every shop here is facing similar problem. The corporation officials need to re-think this and solve our problem,” he said.
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Paid parking is also impacting our business as customers are forced to pay parking fee if they want to visit our shop. The space is being used to park vehicles since decades and bringing this area under commercial parking is like collecting fee from people parking vehicles in front of their homes, said a shop owner. TPA president V. Sambireddy lashed out at the VMC for leasing roads to contractors to increase income. “If the same is encouraged, in future the corporation may also charge people for walking on roads,” he added. The protesters sought the intervention of the Mayor and local representatives in support of the traders. A motorcycle is charged Rs. 5 and a car Rs. 20.