‘No Parking’ within 100 Metres outside D-Mart Mall in Mulund!
The Mumbai Traffic Police has certainly played a commendable role in solving the parking problem in the city, but still a lot needs to be done. In a laudable step to decongest parking problems outside Mumbai’s major malls, the Mumbai Parking Authority has come up with a unique solution of barring private vehicle owners parking within a 100-metre radius of the malls. To provide alternate parking for these vehicles, the Mumbai Parking Authority has tied up with the malls’ authorities and has urged them to provide their parking lots and help in eliminating the traffic menace on Mumbai’s roads.
According to reports recently Madhukar Pandey, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) said, “In our survey, we have noticed that despite malls having parking lots, visitors generally do not park their vehicles in these parking lots. Instead, they park outside the malls creating traffic menace. Hence, we conducted a meeting with the mall owners to seek a solution.” He added, “Initially, we plan to have ‘No Parking’ zones within a 100-metre radius around the malls and later widen the distance to a 500-metre radius.”
Pandey informed that they had a successful meeting with many popular malls of Mumbai and succeeded in winning their support to eradicate illegal parking outside the malls. Interestingly, 13 prominent malls of Mumbai have agreed to offer their parking lots. Among these 13 malls, Mulund’s D-Mart Mall has also nodded to extend help in solving the parking issue.
Vijay Bhise, RTO Senior Police Officer (Mulund), told Home Times, “Illegal parking is a major problem. Daily, we penalize over 700 vehicles for various violations of traffic laws but the maximum, almost 500 cases, are related to illegal parking.” Applauding the Mumbai Parking Authority for initiating the idea of parking inside malls, Vijay Bhise said, “The idea is fantastic. In Mulund, outside D-Mart, the issue of illegal parking has been a gruelling task, but now with ‘No Parking’, this would be a boon for the motorists plying on the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road.” He added, “Besides, the good news is that even the BMC is initiating a Pay and Park pilot project on the Mulund-Goregaon road. Thus, these two parking lots should reduce the traffic menace on the congested the Mulund-Goregaon road.”
Briefing the media, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Vijay Singhal, asserted that the Mumbai Parking Authority is serious in its efforts to decongest the city roads of parking issues. He said, to make the mission a success, the new rule will be implemented after inspection by the Traffic Police and the BMC officials. Anybody found violating the parking norms outside the 13 malls in Mumbai will be penalized with a hefty fine of Rs 10,000/-.
