Parking lots of malls, schools to be used as DTC night shelters

“The parking places of markets, malls and shopping complexes are generally filled in the day hours but vacant at night. These places can be utilised for parking buses,” said Gopal Rai, Delhi transport minister adding that the parking crisis for buses in the city is indeed a major issue. 

“We are facing two-way crisis over lands in the city — firstly, land is in scarcity and secondly, the right to allocate land <g data-gr-id="30">wrests</g> with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) that comes under central buses. By tapping these parking spaces, we will be able to add thousands of buses in Delhi,” added Rai. 

The transport minister further informed that cluster bus operators were not able to add more buses due to lack of parking spaces in Delhi. These spaces will be used only for parking of <g data-gr-id="27">buses</g> but all works of washing, maintenance and the like would be done in the depots. 

“The bus depots have <g data-gr-id="36">capacity</g> to maintain more buses but parking is a crisis. We will select feasible sites for parking from where buses could be brought on the roads easily and vice versa,” added Rai. 

The innovative idea to use these spaces as “night parking sites” for buses was floated by O P Agarwal, Executive Director, Indian School of Business, Mohali, on a question of Rai in which he had invited suggestions from experts during the one-day Vision Conference on Transport for Delhi. 

Rai accepted the decision and later announced it as a part of the government’s vision for the city. 

In the conference, experts also suggested multi-level parking lots and mixed use of the available land like shopping complexes on one side, mandatory constructing ground floors as parking spaces.