Parking fee collectors to have uniforms soon

BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to provide uniforms and identity cards to parking fee collectors.
Around 100 persons are manning the 30 designated places earmarked for parking in the city. "In order to avoid confusion of the commuters about fee collectors, we have planed the uniform. We will bear the cost of uniform for those parking lots, which are directly managed by BMC's men.For institutional and auctioned parking lots, the respective contractors and institutions will have to provide the uniforms," said BMC licensing cell officer Srimanta Mishra.
He said the fee collectors will have to wear their ID cards. "Unlike uniforms, the ID cards will be provided to fee collectors by the BMC. The card will have their photographs, address and mobile phone numbers," said Mishra.
The civic body has also decided to put up uniform signage also at the parking lots. "The signage will be of the uniform size and design on which ?BMC parking' will be written," said Mishra, adding that the 32 proposed parking lots will also have the same signage.
The civic body has sent a proposal of creating 32 more parking lots in the city to the general administration (GA) department. After the GA allots the space to BMC, it will start functioning.
A month ago, some citizen groups had lodged a complaint with the BMC that unauthorized parking lots were in operation in the city and commuters were made to pay a fee for keeping their vehicles there.
Of the 30 existing designated parking lots, 14 have been auctioned and they are managed by private parties. Two are directly managed by the BMC and the remaining 14 are institutional, managed by business houses, hotels and shopping malls. BMC fetched Rs 57 lakh from parking lots last year. Up to July this year, it has collected nearly Rs 2 lakh, BMC sources said.