This Indian City Has Made Parking Free At All Shopping Malls, Multiplexes; Businesses Are Not Happy
In a very interesting and consumer-friendly move, Pune has made parking of 2-wheelers and 3-wheelers absolutely free at all shopping malls and multiplexes in the city.
The reaction from these multiplexes aren’t positive, though.
Can this be cloned all over the country?
Pune Makes Parking Free For All
The City Improvement Committee of the Pune Municipal Corporation has passed a unique resolution, which makes parking free, for all.
The resolution has ordered all multiplexes, and shopping malls in the city not to charge anything from the customers.
A formal notice will be sent to all 15 multiplexes, and 40 shopping malls in the city of Pune.
On weekdays, 2-wheelers are charged Rs 10 to Rs 20, while 4-wheelers are charged Rs 20 to Rs 40 for the parking. On weekends, some malls also charge hourly rate, which can go as high as Rs 100 in some instances.
But from now on, parking would be free.
Businesses Are Not Happy
Quite obviously, businesses are not entirely happy with this decision.
They are claiming that the parking charges are imposed on the customers due to some logical reasons. They fear that as parking would be free, there can be some misuse of their parking facilities.
Besides, the salaries of the gaurds and employees of the parking lots are arranged via parking tickets only.
An unnamed mall-in-charge said, “This will give a free hand to disruptive elements to enter the the space undeterred.”
As per him, even Civic Bodies charge parking fees on the road, and there is nothing wrong if malls and multiplexes charge the same from the customers, in exchange of keeping the vehicles safe.
Now, as there will be no parking fees, the management can shrug off any responsibility from upkeeping the safety and security of the vehicle.
Is There Any Rule For Free Parking? How Did This Happen?
Interestingly, there is no development control (DC) rules or development plan (DP) mentioned by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) regarding free parking.
Infact, in 2012, PMC did try to implement free parking at malls/multiplexes, but the proposal received stiff resistance from businesses, and it was shelved.
The malls used the fact that are no suitable provisions in the Maharashtra Regional Town Planning and DC rules of the corporation for free parking.
However now, PMC has used a ruling by Andhra Pradesh High Court regarding this matter, and have actually executed free parking.
PMC’s chief legal advisor, Ravindra Thorat said, “A directive of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had stated that the malls cannot charge fee from the visitors. We will use the directive to issue the notices.”
Mall owners won’t take this decision lightly, because if free parking is allowed in Pune, then it can be allowed everywhere.
We will keep you updated, as we receive more updates.
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