CHENNAI: Faced with shrinking landholding and plummeting revenue, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has come up with an out-of-the-box solution to shore up its income and address the city’s parking woes. The civic body is mulling tapping into private property to open up a newer avenue of revenue.
If the plan sees the light of day, the gain would be two-fold. On the one hand it would save the GCC the additional expense of embarking on an ambitious project, like a multi-level parking system, while on the other giving its off-colour balance sheet some respectability.
Under the newly-devised plan, the GCC would rope in private property owners to open up their premises, like shopping malls and apartment complexes, for vehicle parking for a fee. The decision is the result of a brainstorming session aimed at addressing the parking space and revenue shortfall ever since the Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) started on its land acquisition spree.
The effect of CMRL can be gauged from the fact that the GCC owned 143 parking lots in the city before 2009. The number has come down to 78 in 2016 after the CMRL works gained momentum, said a senior Corporation official. So what about the revenue? From around `1-1.2 crore a year, the annual revenue from parking lots has plummeted to `40-50 lakh, says data analysis by Corporation’s Revenue Department.
If the shrinking in landholding has dented the GCC’s coffers, it’s the common man who has lost his parking space. According to a recent report, Chennai topped the country in terms vehicle density with 2,903 per km. This is 10 times more than what the country’s capital, New Delhi, recorded. It was this study that sent the Corporation on a re-study of parking lot phenomenon in Chennai last year to identify accessible parking spaces.
“Based on this assessment, we came up with an idea of complementing Corporation-owned parking lots with already available private parking spaces,” said another Corporation official, requesting anonymity. For instance, there are several commercial complexes or malls, which have parking lots, but not put to effective use. Public can pay and park their vehicles in these lots, the official added.
The Corporation is yet to decided on the revenue sharing model and is likely to collect a very minimal amount for maintenance. “More than revenue, we are looking for a solution to the problem. The funds collected through this will mostly to be used for improving public transport facilities and constructing better roads in that area,” said an official. With metered parking available only at 12 lots in the city, cost does not seem to be a matter of concern for car owners. In another study conducted by a private agency along with Corporation, nearly 75 per cent of 4,000 survey respondents replied that they were ready to pay up to `25 per hour, provided the civic body maintained it properly. This was five times more that what the Corporation is charging now.
As a second step, the civic body is mulling an option to rope in gated communities or completely private spaces into this scheme depending on interest as most lots remain vacant during the day as the owners’ utilise it only during the night.
“Rather than spending crores on building Multi-Level Car Parking (MLCP), which was going to attract more traffic and not resolve this issue, effective management of already available parking spaces will do the job,” says Aswathy Dilip of Institute of Transportation and Development Policy. She added that including publicly accessible private parking spaces into Corporation’s parking management system will be effective only if they started collecting fee for on-street parking. Without this step, no one was going to utilise the system, she added. However, raising doubts over the initiative’s success, A Anand, who owns an apartment in Anna Nagar, says, “What is there for the private land owners’ in this, if the Corporation’s role is nothing more than maintaining it and providing security?”
However, Aswathy is more sanguine. “All these structures were built as a part of regulations enforced by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority and if the Corporation can provide a smart IT-based parking system where public can know about the lot’s occupancy status, then it will be beneficial to both.”