No more parking ordeal for car owners; courtesy KMC, Kolkata Police's Bandhu app

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Police have prepared a plan to give some relief to the car owners from undergoing the ordeal of tedious parking experiences in the city.

Come January 2018, one can download the Bandhu app of Kolkata Police and check available parking spaces within 1 km radius, said Vineet Goel, Additional Commissioner of Police (I). This is for the first time that such a venture has been taken up.

Once the app is accessed, he can see road spaced marked in green and red indicating the availability and non availability of space. The system will be introduced on Park Street, Camac Street, Russell Street, Brabourne Road and Sambhunath Pandit Street.

The city cops are giving training to KMC employees of the parking department and agents of private parking fee collecting firms. If successful, the system will be introduced throughout the city.

Parking vehicles in the city particularly in the Central Business District (CBD) has become a major hassle over the past few years.

Parking a vehicle on Brabourne Road, Kiron Shankar Roy Road, Church Lane, Hare Street is a real tough job. Earlier, there were several allegations of overcharging by vehicle owners against the agencies collecting parking fees. The KMC had put up boards in different areas to inform car owners about the rate of parking fees which depended upon the duration. Also, there were several allegations of misbehavior of the parking fees collectors.

To iron this out, the parking fee collectors now carry a device to record the duration of parking on the basis of which the fee is calculated. Car owners are given receipts containing duration and the fees they are supposed to pay.

The collectors are given training to behave soberly with car owners.

They have been given training about the function of the app as well. The app is going to help car owners immensely as they will be able to know the availability of parking space in a particular area just at the click of a mouse.