BENGALURU:The recent comment by Transport Minister DC Thamanna, in which he said that the State Government may make it compulsory for a person to have parking space before registering her or his car, has been largely welcomed by experts who are now waiting to see if and how it will be implemented.
The state government has in the past tried to get this clause included in the central motor vehicles rules, after similar proposals were mooted by many cities. This time, the government is hoping to enforce it through a notification from the transport department. However, to avoid hasty decisions, the proposal will be studied and discussed with several stakeholders and experts before notifications are issued.
“It is a line of thought which is going on. We need to hold rounds of discussions with all concerned before taking a call on the modalities,” said Naveen Raj Singh, Transport Commissioner.However, other officials are of the opinion that it would be a very hard rule to implement if the department is tasked with the job of ensuring that parking space is available before approving the vehicle registration. “If the police or any other authority issues a certificate that can be taken by the RTO to grant registration it would be much better. With the high number of vehicle registrations, it would be next to impossible for us to visit each and every home to verify parking space,” a RTO officer said on condition of anonymity.
According to traffic experts, this is a move in the right direction. “It is a fundamentally correct principle. The efforts of the government to reduce the vehicles on the road must focus on discouraging ownership and also usage of cars. While congestion charges could be a possible measure to tax usage of private cars, making parking compulsory discourages ownership entirely. It is a sustainable measure,” said Ashish Verma of the Civil Engineering Department in the Indian Institute of Science.
Verma also stressed on the need to ramp up the city’s public transport capacity simultaneously. “Public transport needs to keep improving to draw away people from their vehicles. There needs to be a sense of urgency to this aspect, as a city like ours must ideally have more than 200 km of Metro rail. The BMTC must also tweak their routes to avoid competition with Metro and focus on reaching all areas,” he said.
Urban planning expert V Ravichandar also agreed that this may work if a good public transport system is in place. But, for now, he does not think this will be an effective deterrent, like say traffic congestion would be a deterrent.