Their ways, their rules

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 20

Visitors are a harried lot as the Municipal Corporation has turned a blind eye to fleecing at parking lots on the Ferozepur road.

The parking rate has been fixed at Rs 5 per hour. However, the parking staff make visitors pay Rs 20 (money for four hours) right away after issuing tickets. Also, there is no mention of the timings on the ticket to ensure a fair transaction. The visitors are being issued half-torn slips, so as to intentionally hide the parking fee rates.

The Tribune team, after speaking to visitors, found that the parking staff were overcharging blatantly and minting money. The visitors were not charged parking fee as per the prescribed rates.

Dawinder Singh, a visitor, said: “I argued with them so many time but they don’t listen. Even if I park my vehicle for half an hour, they charge me Rs 20. No authorities are keeping a check on this blatant loot.” 

Another visitor, Raman, who returned after 20 minutes, was not returned money by the staff when he asked for the same.

The apathy of the MC is such that they have even failed to display proper fee boards at most of the parking lots. The fee boards installed are worn to shreds and are illegible.

Going by the rules, e-tickets are mandatory instead of manual tickets. However, instead of adhering to the norms, the parking staff issue manual tickets and overcharge visitors. 

Rajinder, a parking employee, said: “The machine that generates e-tickets is not working at the moment. We have to get the machine from outstation, so we are using manual tickets.”

The Municipal Commissioner, Jaskiran Singh, could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. 

Actual parking fee rates for Ferozepur Road 

• Rs 5 per hour for two-wheeler (up to 4 hours)
• Rs 10 per hour for four-wheeler (up to 4 hours)

The parking is allowed up to four hours only