Agency flouts KMC tariff, charges Rs 20 as parking fee

Kolkata: A parking fee collecting agency is illegally charging Rs 20 per hour from car owners on Jawaharlal Nehru Road flouting the tariff of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

The KMC's tariff is Rs 10 per hour. South End Fee Car Parking Cooperative Society is collecting Rs 20 per hour illegally from car owners.

The agency has gone a step further and printed receipts which they are giving to the owners. This has helped the agency to collect lakhs of rupees per month. As the agency is giving a printed receipt most of the car owners do not raise any question and give the money.

Senior KMC officials when contacted said this is illegal and assured that they will look into the matter. Santanu Samanta, a businessman had taken his wife to a private diagnostic centre on June 11. He parked his car near the Haldiram shop on Jawaharlal Nehru Road. He parked his vehicle at 9.54 am and came back at 12.07 pm.

The man collecting the car parking asked him to pay Rs 60 (Rs 20 per hour for three hours) and gave him a receipt. When Samanta said that why was he charging more money, the person said recently the parking fee has been hiked all over the city. "As they gave me receipt I thought that the KMC must have hiked the parking fees. But there was an uncanny feeling that the collector was not telling me the truth," said Samanta.

He immediately contacted Tapas Chowdhury, special municipal commissioner who said that no decision to hike the parking fee has been taken by KMC and what the agency has done is illegal.

It was learnt that the civic authorities had proposed to hike the parking fee to Rs 20 per hour instead of Rs 10 per hour. But the matter has not yet been implemented.

When contacted, the South End Fee car parking Cooperative Society said they had hiked the fee as the KMC officials had told them earlier that they would hike the parking fee.