Amongst the various pressing issues existing in Mumbai city, one of the major issue is insufficient space for parking the vehicles-which the civic administration has been failing to resolve. The parking woes in Mumbai are rising every passing day with the number of residential complexes coming up and vehicles the citizens are purchasing. As per Traffic expert Ashok Datar, “There are 23 lakh cars in Mumbai, and 34 lakh two-wheelers and 1/3rd of the vehicles are parked on the roads. The government has systematically failed to address the parking issues in the city.”
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had formed a committee to draft the parking policy for the island city. The Mumbai Parking Authority (MPA) was also formed by the civic body, however the MPA is not fully operations. Datar who was in the committee to draft the parking policy said, “After years of inaction and unwillingness to implement required measures, I finally exited the committee. The BMC is more interested to provide more FSI to private builders in return of public parking. This policy has simply benefited the builders and not the common man.”
Mumbai News: MahaRERA Mandate On Allocating Parking Spaces A Welcome Move
As per a recent report by Observer Research Foundation, “Mumbai has the country’s highest vehicle density. The city’s Comprehensive Mobility Plan, released in 2016, calculated a parking demand of 2,84,575 equivalent car space (ECS). However, in 2022, the city was estimated to have substantially less available parking capacity—39,501 ECS with the BMC and about 26,815 ECS with government, parastatals, and commercial establishments. In 2022, the BMC released a parking policy for the city, but it is yet to be fully operational. The policy proposes that the MPA will be responsible for parking in the city.”
Datar also said that every year 3 to 4 lakh new vehicles are purchased. But the city does not have sufficient parking space. There should be a policy that one should be allowed to purchase a car only after he/she proves availability of space to park the particular vehicle, similar to Tokyo in Japan. “Several public parking in Mumbai still not handed over to the BMC and the ones under management of BMC are lying empty as the multi-storyed public parking spaces are inconvenient for people. With the number of high rises coming up, there are not equal number of parking spaces. People continue parking roadside. The MPA is not operational and no policy is in place,” he said.
He also opined that, “Our focus should not be on increasing parking lots, but decreasing number of cars being purchased. Every flat should have only one car and if the owner is parking the vehicle on public roads, should pay charges to the BMC.”
With an aim to resolve these issues, the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority (MahaRERA), in the month of April, made it mandatory for developers to include all details related to parking as part of annexures to the Allotment Letter and Agreement for Sale. The Authority also issued a model draft clause as part of the circular’s annexure, to be included in the legal documents, which includes all the details regarding the parking lot number, parking length, height, width, location of the parking block etc. in the building.
The MahaRERA’s policy is welcomes by everyone, however it needs to be seen as how diligently it will be followed.
Deputy Engineer for BMC Traffic department could not be reached for a comment at the time of filing this article.
