Just a fortnight after the Chandigarh municipal corporation hiked the parking rates in its lot outside Elante Mall — as in other parts of the city — the mall management has also revised the rates, making it dearer for both four- and two-wheeler owners to use its multilevel basement parking.
The hike, which came into force on Saturday midnight, has made it less expensive to park in the MC parking outside the mall. Moreover, higher parking rates have been introduced at weekend — Saturday and Sunday — when at least one lakh people visit the mall.
While the MC House is meeting on Monday to take a call on rolling back the hike in its parking lots, it cannot regulate rates of Elante Mall’s internal parking.
Four-wheelers will have to pay Rs 30 for first hour. During weekdays, additional Rs 10 will be charged per hour thereafter. However, during weekend, additional Rs 20 will be charged.
This is a steep hike in comparison to old rates.
For instance, if a family visits the mall to watch a movie and have dinner — which takes around five hours — they used to pay Rs 50 for parking their car. Now, they will have to shell out Rs 70 during weekday, while on Saturday and Sunday, they will charged a whopping Rs 110.
Anil Malhotra, a representative of the mall’s management, said rates have been hiked as the parking lots were recently refurbished. The manpower has also been increased, necessitating the hike to meet expenses, he said.
Sunil Kumar, an official of Secure Parking Solution Limited that mans the parking lot inside Elante, said visitors were unhappy with the sudden hike. “We will give the feedback to the management,” he said.
