After much delay, the city Corporation’s finance standing committee has fixed the rates for multilevel car parking lot located inside the Corporation office premises near Palayam. The rates will be finalised after the council vets the proposals from the committee.
For the public, the committee has fixed a rate of ₹30 for the first two hours and ₹15 for each hour following that, for a maximum of eight hours. The user has to remit ₹200, the rate for 24 hours, for any parking beyond eight hours. The maximum permissible parking time for a vehicle is 48 hours, which will be reduced to 24 hours in case there is increased demand. The first two floors of the parking lot, covering around 40% of the total area, have been set aside for free parking for the Corporation staff and councillors. The entry to the parking lot is through the Corporation office’s new gate opposite the Napier Museum entrance, while the exit will be on the Palayam side. Across seven floors, the facility can accommodate 102 cars at a time. A sensor placed at the entry point calculates the weight and dimensions of the incoming vehicle, based on which the most suitable space is allocated by the system. On swiping the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag provided at the entry point, the ramp from the specific spot allocated will arrive at the ground floor. The driver can leave the vehicle and exit the ramp, after which it will move and lock into the space allocated. During exit, the location and the time taken for the car to be brought to the ground floor will be indicated on swiping the card at the out-booth. The parking lot will function from 6 a.m to 8 p.m. The structure of the parking lot was completed by December 2019. But the work on the fire safety equipment and testing had remained pending, after which it was opened for the public towards the end of last year. Executed under the Union Government’s Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme, the parking lot was completed at a cost of ₹5.64 crore. Out of this, 50% of the cost was borne by the city Corporation, 30% by the Central government and 20% by the State government. An error in the estimates prepared by Kitco had led to a cost escalation of around ₹1 crore in the project.
