With COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns leading to returns which are much below expectations, there are no takers for contract to run some of the city Corporation’s parking lots including the Gandhi Park.
For the past three tender calls issued by the Corporation for running the parking facility at Gandhi Park, there has been no response from those who take up such contracts. For the past many weeks, there has been no one to collect fees at the parking area inside the Gandhi Park. From the civic body’s perspective, this is loss of considerable revenue, while for the regular users, the absence of people to manage the parking space can cause much confusion especially during the rush hours when there is lack of enough space to park vehicles.
At a time when revenues have taken a hit and expenses have increased, mainly due to running various facilities to manage the pandemic, the lack of revenue from such sources can further complicate matters for the civic body. The Corporation has appointed a total of eight people including gardeners, cleaning and security staff for the Gandhi Park. The management of the parking lot is usually auctioned off to private agencies. “The Corporation does get revenue from the Gandhi Park, including the rental amount from those who organise functions here and from the parking. But, after the COVID-19 outbreak, and the lockdowns, those who had taken the contract previously was not getting the kind of revenues they expected. So, there have been no respondents although we attempted to auction it off thrice. Now, we have decided to collect the parking fee using our own security staff,” said a Corporation official. The managing of the park’s affairs is also beset with coordination issues, as there are separate files for parking, public functions, electricity, and water connections, all of which are handled by different wings. Meanwhile, the Corporation had recently fixed the rates for the multilevel car parking lot located inside the Corporation office premises near Palayam, with the users having to pay ₹30 for the first two hours and ₹15 for each hour following that.
