HYDERABAD: While the new parking policy is a much-needed relief for city mall-goers, the parking management companies who would lose a major chunk of their revenue with the implementation of the Government Order (GO) are not a happy lot. Some parking management firms hope to get the mall management and shops compensate for the revenue loss.
The parking management companies are taking the GO with a pinch of salt. At Inorbit mall, for instance, the parking management firm is mulling passing the parking charges on their retail shop owners.
“We keeping tab on how many of our visitors are genuine customers of the mall,” said an Inorbit mall management staff.
“Once we get to know which shop has the most number of customers using the parking space, we can ask them to bear the cost of the parking revenue we are losing out on. We are trying to get parking amount that is to be paid by customers to be charged on the shop from where the purchase was made. This has not been decided yet. We will have discussions with the mall management and shop owners,” said Durga Prasad, parking manager, JSS Security Solutions private limited, at Inorbit mall.
“On an average, we get 1,500 cars and over 2,000 two-wheelers on a weekend. And it’s more or less the same during weekdays. This GO is definitely going to hurt us. We are yet to take any decision and are in talks with the mall management to find a solution,” said an employee with Central Parking Service at GVK mall.
However, not all malls have been collecting parking charges. City Centre mall has had free car parking for the past 11 years. “As such there is very less footfall. We also don’t have adequate parking spots around our mall. So we chose to keep it free,” said Mohammed Salahuddin, Parking Manager at City centre mall.