Chandigarh: Panel to spot new sites for parking lots

CHANDIGARH: In a meeting, which was held at Community Centre 37 to discuss the environmental and social impact of 24x7 water supply in Chandigarh, the residents have said the initiative would make their lives more comfortable.
The meeting was addressed by former mayor and councillor Arun Sood; Dewashish Paul and Himanshu Shekhar of EGIS International and Sahil Kumar of Chandigarh Smart City.
Representative of the meeting said a public consultation was being conducted as per AFD requirements. They said that factors like temporary digging for laying of pipeline, generation of dust and noise, temporary access problem to houses and shops, disruption of water supply are likely to impact residents durinChandigarh: As the Chandigarh administration is in the process of finalizing the parking policy for the city, a special team has been formed to visit a couple of congested sectors to see the ground reality.
The committee will identify chunks of land for parking lots in these sectors and submit its report to the senior officer concerned of the UT. The committee comprises representatives of the department of transport and engineering in Municipal Corporation and UT's departments of urban planning, traffic police, and housing board.
As the transport is nodal department on the subject of parking policy, it hasb been coordinating with the other departments concerned. “Since all these departments are stakeholders and they must bear collective responsibility on the subject, the representatives of all these wings have been kept on the committee that will visit the sectors and prepare a report. The committee will visit both residential and commercial areas of the sectors and its prime focus will be on spotting vacant chunks of land that can be turned into parking space in those areas to provide parking facilities to the public,” said a source in the UT administration.
Significantly, advisor to the administrator will take the meeting with all the concerned senior officers who are involved in this process to finalize the parking policy. “As the matter is with the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the next date of hearing on the issue is fixed in the month of July, we have to give something concrete on the policy to the high court”, said an official.
In April, four departments of the UT—Traffic Police, Chandigarh Housing Board, Municipal Corporation, and DC Office—had submitted over three dozen comments/suggestions to the transport department of the Chandigarh administration on the parking policy subject.
In their comments, the departments had focused over usable cycling and walking paths for the public and its promotion, improvement in the public transport system in the city, car-free day in a week, carpool, congestion pricing in core commercial areas, underground and multistory parking lots, deterrent penalty for wrong parking, allowing street parking in some areas.