Contractor raises allotted parking area by adding zero

The parking mafia in the national capital is discovering newer ways to cheat the public and the civic agencies on a regular basis it has emerged. 

In a recent development, an east Delhi contractor increased the parking space allocated to him by around 10 times by tactically adding a zero to the documents. Surprisingly, Monti Maheshwari managed to change the documents in possession of East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) as well hinting at a clear involvement of the civic agency’s officials.

According to original EDMC records, Maheshwari was allotted 600 metre area as parking site along 200 feet wide Pusta Road near a busy market in Bhajanpura area around six months back on a monthly fee of Rs 2.69 lakh.

‘The contractor in connivance with the officers of the parking department managed to change all the records even in that fed into computers from 600 metre to 6,000 metre and submitted it to the local police station for permission,’ said Mahak Singh, member of the standing committee showing the application, Singh got from the New Usmanpur police station. 

‘All the records with the field officers, enforcement wing have been manipulated accordingly and the contractor has put a board claiming parking on both the sides of the 6 km road,’ he added.

The deputy commissioner (parking) G L Gupta accepted the manipulation of records but termed it a mistake. ‘I have ordered an inquiry into the matter and the report will be submitted within a week. The department is further directed to re-survey and verify all the parking sites in EDMC area,’ said S Kuramaswamy, commissioner of EDMC. According to an estimate the contractor is getting over Rs 10 lakh per month illegally due to this fraud.

EDMC, however, is not the only civic body from which such cases of fraud have been reported. South DMC, North DMC and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) have been victims of cunning tricks of parking mafia in their areas too.

On 2 September, South DMC ordered a vigilance inquiry on the connivance of between parking contractors and officers after a loss of Rs 60 lakh. 

It was found that contractors deliberately delayed the implementation of new parking fees to mint more money. North DMC has so far lost crores because of the delaying tactics in the implementation of new parking fees.

NDMC could not implement its new parking rates in posh parking sites of Lutyens Zone scheduled from August forcing it to extend their contracts on three year old parking fee.