Surat residents will now have to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the municipal corporation before purchasing cars. Residents have to show the civic body officials that they have the required spaces to park the cars to get the NOC, without which they would not be able to get their newly purchased vehicles registered with the district Regional Transport Office. Advertising This is under the new parking policy framed by the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) to ease traffic congestion in the city. The SMC is the first civic body in the state to come up with a parking policy and has already got approval from the government to implement the policy in the city. The civic authorities have already started working on the parking policies. SMC sources said that the main roads in all the seven zones in the city will be demarcated where contractors will be hired to collect parking charges. The SMC will also be giving parking permits to vehicle owners at specific locations so that they do not park their vehicles randomly. Apart from this, the number of multi-storey buildings meant for parking will be increased soon, SMC sources said. Surat city Development Officer Manish Doctor said, “Large number of cars ply on Surat roads. The car owners, mostly, park their cars haphazardly on the roads, which create problems for movement of vehicles and also to the pedestrians. We have come up with a rule that if a person purchases a new car, before getting it registered with the Surat RTO, he has to contact Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) office and obtain an NOC. The SMC officials will check if the car owner has the required parking space to issue him an NOC. The SMC officials will personally visit and check the parking area, and if satisfied, an NOC will be issued to the new car owner.” Advertising “We will hold meetings with the RTO officials of Surat city and request them to check the NOC of the SMC before registering new cars,” he added. SMC sources said that if a car owner does not have parking space, he/she can obtain NOC by showing parking sharing facilities. If there is no parking space in the car owner’s residence, he or she can show parking spaces in neighbouring areas, sources added. The car owners can also show school grounds and unused parking spaces of commercial buildings as parking spaces to get the NOC, sources said. “With 99,000 autorickshaws plying on the roads in Surat city, the SMC had also come up with an idea of identifying parking spaces near railway stations, city buses and BRTS bus stands,” Doctor added. Surat RTO Parth Joshi said, “So far, we have not got any intimation from the SMC, but we are ready to extend our help to them.”

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