Mulund has three car parks but locals say charges are too high

  • | Monday | 15th July, 2019

Outside Mulund station, a BMC hoarding greets you with the message that there is parking available within 500 metres. The lot has 510 slots of which 480 are for light motor vehicles and 30 for light carriage vehicles. Of this, 1,152 are meant for light motor vehicles and the remaining 117 for heavy motor vehicles. According to an attendant on the site, irgets about 500 vehicles daily and is used by heavy motor vehicles like trucks. Viral Shah, a Mulund resident, said, "It's nice to have parking lots but the rates need to be reduced so everyone can afford them.

Outside Mulund station, a BMC hoarding greets you with the message that there is parking available within 500 metres. The hoarding points to one of the three main parking lots in the central suburb. We visited the three lots, all on the stretch from Jawaharlal Nehru Road to Nahur village and then to LBS Marg, and found that they have over 1,800 slots. However, the three together get about 700-750 cars on a daily basis, which is less than half of the total parking capacity available. The first lot we visited was the one that the station hoarding mentioned. This public parking is at Jawaharlal Nehru Road, which started operating a couple of days ago. It can accommodate 125 vehicles. In the first two days, the lot got around 25-30 vehicles a day. A huge board outside, put up by the assistant commissioner of BMC's T-ward under which it falls, states that for the first month, the parking is free for residents. This is to encourage people to park legally and to promote the lot. The lot was handed over to BMC three months ago. For now, it also accommodates vehicles towed by the traffic police for being parked illegally on the road. BMC recently started imposing hefty fines up to Rs 10,000 for vehicles parked within a kilometre of the public parking lot. The second lot is the one at LBS Marg. It was handed over to the BMC by the developer in 2017 and has been active for quite some time. According to one of the attendants at the lot, the parking was free for residents of the area for the initial three months. The lot has 510 slots of which 480 are for light motor vehicles and 30 for light carriage vehicles. The attendant claimed that the lot has not been used to its full capacity as the average number of car parks here is about 200. Many people take a monthly pass on which discounts are offered by the contractor to get people to use the facility. The third lot is located on the edges of the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road project in Nahur. It has 1,269 slots. Of this, 1,152 are meant for light motor vehicles and the remaining 117 for heavy motor vehicles. The lot was handed over to the BMC by the developer in 2016 and has since been active. According to an attendant on the site, irgets about 500 vehicles daily and is used by heavy motor vehicles like trucks. The attendant said it is a multi-storey slot but it does not operate at capacity. The contractor for this lot also hands out discounts on monthly passes to encourage locals to park here. Viral Shah, a Mulund resident, said, "It's nice to have parking lots but the rates need to be reduced so everyone can afford them. Only then will we be able to see them fully occupied. Some parking lots charge Rs 3,000 per month, which means Rs 36,000 a year. Most people don't even pay half of this amount for the insurance on their vehicles, and expecting them to shell out this much on parking is another thing altogether."

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