Parking Blues

Last week I had written blog on Motor Vehicles and the problems associated with them regarding pollution and smog. My today’s blog is on the issue of parking, which has become major problem in all the major cities in the country and until the respective govt/municipal corporations of the cities do something about the same, it is going to be one of the biggest problem in the coming years, as number of vehicles are going on increasing day by day.
I am going to deliberate briefly why this problem has become a gigantic one :

1. With the opening of economy in 1991, one of the major beneficiary was the automobile sector and the licences were given to so many car manufacturers to start manufacturing cars in India or till the time they open the manufacturing facilities, they were allowed to import the cars and sell in India.
2. With the availability of so many cars, the Bank started financing the cars at very affordable interest rates and people started buying new cars. Unlike the earlier times banks even started financing used/second hand cars. So car population started increasing in the country.
3. Simultaneously govt should have improved the city infrastructure like roads etc to take care of additional vehicles, but sadly govt failed to do the same.
4. Govt went on encouraging automobile industry to get more taxes but failed miserably at the infra development level.
5. Being Mumbaikar, I would like to brief you what happened here. Govt went on widening all the roads to facilitate the vehicular movement, forgetting the pedestrian rights, and the matter reached at such a stage that there was no further scope to widen the roads. With this there was no space left on the roads for parking the cars. In Mumbai city almost 80% of the roads are having NO Parking sign.
6. Further the problem is compounded in recent years by the introduction of App based cabs like OLa and Uber, in Mumbai where ever you go, you will see these cabs are parked on the city roads, thus depriving the genuine car owners the available parking space.All these App based cabs, private bus operators are in league with traffic police and their vehicle are never towed away but if a private car is found in no parking area within minutes it will be towed away, and you will end up paying fine and towing charges which can be any where between Rs 400 to Rs 700. I must have paid fine 4 to 5 times in last few years.
7. There are hardly any Pay and Parking areas in the city , and even if they are there in certain areas you are not sure that when you go there you will find any parking space, as all these parking lots are limited parking bays. And what to say about parking charges- they are extraordinarily high. Highest being at Mumbai Airport where for half an hour you pay almost Rs 280.
8. Old timers would vouch for me- as far as I remember when the road tax was introduced the govt said that we are charging this tax as your vehicle is running on the roads and we have to repair the roads, you use our roads for parking your vehicle, hence you pay this tax. Now the situation is such that in Mumbai half the roads are not worth driving and parking place is not there on the roads.
9.As people are having multiple cars now there is shortage of parking space in residential buildings and housing societies and it so happens that there are many feuds between residents on this issue. In the new housing complexes builders/promoters charge lakhs of rupees for single parking bay. As per the lay each housing society should allot 10% parking area for visitor parking, but it never happens as there is always shortage of parking space for residents.
10. I have formed a rule that if have to visit someone, I generally call that person before hand and find out about the parking scene of that area then only I take out my car.

So govt have to do something on war footing to solve this issue, otherwise there will come one day no one will be buying new car because from where he is going to find the parking space and all the car manufacturers will have to shut their shops.

So in the end what you say my friends.
Awaiting for your feed backs and comments.