Taking advantage of the city Corporation’s laxity in developing public parking facilities, private players have started venturing into that space, fixing the parking fee at their discretion and exploiting motorists who have no other options.
Shopping by car at three or four locations in the heart of city will entail an expense of Rs.40 for parking alone, as many commercial outlets fail to offer parking space to customers, in violation of the Kerala Municipal Building Act.
While two-wheelers often surmount the parking hurdle, four-wheelers and heavy vehicles find the going tough. As wayside parking is banned, such vehicles, including tourist carriers and goods vehicles, shell out more for the parking lots of private players.
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The situation becomes worse during festivals, when the private players just close the parking lots after sufficient vehicles have parked inside. No fewer than four such spacious parking lots are operational in the city limits, in addition to the small players. People who do not get space to park here have to either go in search of a space by the beachside or look for a location some distance from the city.
“At least one good public parking space should be there in the city to prove that the local administration is truly concerned. In Kozhikode, you won’t find such a standard facility anywhere,” says Mohammed Riyaz, a taxi driver. It was this casualness that attracted private parking providers and led them to charge exorbitant sums, he said.
What irks motorists is the long-pending automated parking system for which the foundation stone was laid in 2010 by the then Industries Minister Elamaram Karim. The build-operate-transfer project, which was expected to be completed in 18 months, lost steam midway. The modular parking facility was expected to accommodate over 63 cars at a time adjacent to the Kozhikode railway station.
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Similarly, the Mobility Hub, a project recently conceived by the Motor Vehicles Department at Thondayad, has made little headway. The project was designed in such a way as to offer parking for 3,000 cars and 2,000 motorcycles at a time. The proposal reached a stalemate after a section of environmentalists raised objection, pointing out that the construction of the mobility hub would harm the surrounding wetlands. “People demand a public parking facility as it guarantees some security to the vehicle owners unlike in the case of the private players, and a reasonable fare,” says Vinod Kumar, a vehicle owner. Till such time, the Corporation should rein in the private players who fix the parking fee at their own discretion, he says.