So you have a car now, however, where is the space to park it? Okay, you have a good parking lot in the building, but then, what about the places you visit? Unless you have Rs 500 in your pocket always, you can park it haphazardly on the road. In this article, we have dealt with perils that Mumbai public face when they have to park their cars. The city’s parking lots are the ones wherein one tends to plonk their car once they are all ready with it. As of now, the official figure that the Mumbai RTOs combined peg for the city are about 21 lakh cars. Estimates say that amongst these cars, about 2 lakh were registered last year. For all these cars, there are only 30k public parking spaces. This means about 70 cars would be hemmed into one parking lot. For the pay and park scheme that BMC runs for Mumbai city, there are only 92 of them and by this we mean the functional ones. MSRDC or Maharashtra State Road Transport Development Corporation has got about 21 flyovers. Underneath these flyovers, vehicles can be parked. In total, they can afford to accommodate about 10k vehicles. Mumbai airport has a parking space for 2250 vehicles. So, this in all makes this whole city with about 2 million cars with parking slots of 30k.
Mumbai has got 3 RTOs and out of this, the period between 1st April 2010 to March 31st 2011, there were about 1.80 lakh vehicles registered. This is an alarming thing for those looking for parking spaces since there is a big void for the parking space and moreso with the vehicles number piling up day by day. Even now, Mumbai’s roads are jam packed with cars so much so that one fine day would arrive when Mumbai’s roads are all filled up and there wouldn’t be enough space available for one to drive their car. Most of the times, cabs and private buses are parked alongside the road. If its figures that excite you, then how about the fact that in Mumbai, there are 900 vehicles in one kilometer. Outside India, the maximum permissible limit of vehicles in one kilometer is only 300. To solve the parking crisis, the authorities in Mumbai are keen on getting multi level parking lots in the city. Permission has been already obtained from the municipal commission for this project (5 have been sanctioned so far) and it is said that even tenders have been invited. But, as of now, everything depends on the fact that as and when these parking slots pass the red tape. One official also commented that all these 5 parking lots can accommodate upto 600 cars at a time. Goregaon would be the luckiest place to park your vehicle since, if at all the project gets the final nod, it would have the most spacious place, in the name of Patkar college, of which there would be 6 multi level parking slots. Two are underground parking slots as well. A capacity of 227 cars is estimated here. Near the JVLR flyover, in Jogeshwari, there would be another facility which would hold 150 cars while the other one in Pali Hills would boast of having a 50 cars capacity one. 160 cars is the estimated figure for the parking slot which would be built in Nagpada.
Here is the real bummer of all these news. It is the fact that parking an aeroplane for an hour costs only Rs 36 while parking a car in Mumbai costs Rs 130. Parked cars in Mumbai airport give the airport revenue in excess of Rs 40 lakhs each day. Estimates rank the number of cars coming into Mumbai airport each day at 18-20k. An aircraft weighing more than 20 metric tonnes and can take in 50 people at a time is charged only Rs 36 per hour as parking charges. The Airport Authority of India or the AAI has a strange explanation for this. Parking charge in the airport is fixed at Rs 1.80 per meter for aeroplanes. On the other hand, for a car weighing 2.5 tonnes, the parking charge is Rs 60 for the initial half hour and then Rs 130 each hour. The different parking rates prevalent across Mumbai are as listed below.
Airport
First 30 minutes would be charged Rs 60 while the next two hours combined would be charged at Rs 130.
For Airline and staff, the monthly parking charge for two wheelers comes in at Rs 175, For 4 wheelers, it is Rs 500 and for other vehicles, it ranks in at Rs 10k. Additional service tax is also levied.
BMC parking slots
For 2 wheelers, in the initial 1st hour, the charge is Rs 5 and extra Rs 5 for the next 2 hrs. For 4 wheelers, the initial amount is doubled for the 1st hour and then for every 2 hours more, the charge is similar to the two wheelers.
MSRDC
For 4 wheelers, for the 1st hour, the charges are Rs 5 , Rs 1 for two wheeled vehicles, Rs 2 for autorickshaws and Rs 10 for buses.
MMRDA
Irrespective of the type of vehicle that you park there, MMRDA charges you a flat rate. For the 1st hour, Rs 17 is charged and for each additional hour that you spend your time there, an additional Rs 12 is charged.
MSRDC says that it has got about 21 parking lots and all of these are the “Pay and Park” types. All these parking lots are under its flyovers. These parking lots are spread across the length and breadth of Mumbai namely in some places like Vakola, Kalina, Nerul, Vashi, Kurla, Aarey colony, Fergusson road, Cadbury junction, National Park and many more. At the same time, MMRDA has built multi level parking lots and these are based only in 3 locations in Mumbai. Those are Oshiwara, BKC and also Nariman Point CR2. In total, these lots can accommodate upto 2000 vehicles. The parking crisis in Mumbai doesn’t look like it would stop anytime sooner, however, its good to know that efforts are being made in this direction and it would work out for the better in the coming times.
