Starting Monday, many qualified engineers will start manning parking spaces in various parts of the city, along with parking attendants with just an SSLC.
So far, all of the parking attendants in the city have been retired armed forces personnel, who had completed high school.
More than 1,400 candidates have applied for jobs of parking attendants. More than 70% of the applicants have completed graduation. Over 50% are engineers, indicating the level of unemployment among engineers in the city.
Chennai Corporation will inaugurate the parking management system in more than 2,000 parking slots in areas such as Anna Nagar, Nungambakkam and Purasawalkam on Monday.
For instance, Anna Nagar Second Avenue will get 550 parking slots where motorists will have qualified engineers requesting them to download the app for parking management.
Currently, 222 parking slots have been offered for motorists. But, the digital mode has not been promoted properly by the civic body so far.
“Many of the applicants for the parking attendants posts have also completed their master’s in engineering. These people may be ideal candidates for promoting the digital mode of parking management. The actual qualification for parking attendants is an SSLC,” said an official of the private vendor who is implementing the parking management system.
As many as 1,000 persons have been hired by the vendor for the posts of parking attendants. They will start work on Monday. Many of the engineers who visited Ripon Buildings on Thursday said they were applying for the parking attendants jobs because they were unemployed.
Tough times
“I have completed civil engineering. I do not have a job because of the market condition in the real estate industry,” said an applicant.
As many as 18,000 persons have downloaded the app for parking management in the city.
“Each of the engineers will have to educate the motorists. It is purely a digital mode. The number of downloads of the app has to increase for successful implementation of the system,” said an official.
