From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Dec 20: Will the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which had recently approved a parking policy for the entire city aimed at collecting huge revenues from the vehicle owners in Bangalore, go ahead and implement the policy?
 
The Chief Secretary of Karnataka, Kaushik Mukherjee, who along with heads of various civic agencies and departments attended the meeting of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly’s Petitions Committee headed by Deputy Speaker N H Shivashankara Reddy, advised the BBMP Commissioner N Lakshminarayana to implement the parking policy in the City to avoid haphazard parking of vehicles, traffic congestion and bring in more revenue to the City Corporation.

Mukherjee asked the Commissioner to hold talks with the councillors and Bangalore city MLAs, who are members of the BBMP Council, and convince them the necessity of collecting parking fee in the City.

BBMP should not approve any building plans without the space earmarked for parking vehicles inside the building premises, the chief secretary said.

Lakshminarayana said the BBMP Council has passed the parking policy but it was not being implemented due to opposition from councillors and legislators.

However, barring Bridage Road, no parking fee was paid by vehicle users in the City.

Absence of fee led to haphazard parking of vehicles on busy roads of the city which caused slow movement of traffic.

The meeting was chaired by Deputy Speaker Shivashankara Reddy and BJP MLA and former Minister S Suresh Kumar, MLA S Chikmadu, Bangalore City Police Commissioner Raghavendra H Auradkar and heads of various civic agencies and departments.

The BBMP commissioner also sought the support of the councillors and legislators for taking up road widening works in the City.

The Chief Secretary also told the BBMP to give equal priority for clearance of pending bills of contractors as well taking up new works.

The BBMP expecteed to generate Rs 2000 crore in 2013-14, which was 40 per cent more than the previous year (around Rs 1400 crore), Lakshminarayana said.

However, the amount was insufficient to clear pending contractors’ bills and take up proposed works.
 
Lakshminaraya appreciated Wipro’s gesture to clear pending dues to the BBMP.

Mukherjee told the commissioner to prepare a report on the finances required by the BBMP to clear pending bills and the report would be placed before the Chief Minister to seek funds.