The Hindu : Bumpy ride for parking lots

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 01, 2003

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Bumpy ride for parking lots

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI APRIL 30. The alleged nexus between the parking mafia and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC)'s Enforcement Department officials is making the going tough for small contractors who are finding it virtually impossible to bid for parking lots.

These hapless small contractors say lack of transparency on the part of the NDMC in the entire parking tender process and the arm-twisting tactics by parking mafia are the two main factors which restricts them from bidding for parking lots in Lutyens' Delhi.

Stating that they have complained to senior NDMC officials about irregularities and favouritism in the tender process, the small contractors allege that the Enforcement Department officials dealing with parking tender process are hand-in-glove with parking mafia. Moreover, the small contractors are also afraid of parking mafia because they use muscle power to settle scores with them.

Sources in the NDMC said most of the small contractors were those who earlier used to work for the parking mafia, but after a period of time they decided to run parking lots of their own. Parking mafia were unable to tolerate this and were now threatening them to not take part in the tender process. Pointing out the latest anomaly in the tender process of 103 parking lots, the small contractors said the Enforcement Department officials issued no public notice in newspapers for parking tenders. In a hush-hush affair, the tender notices were just pasted on office notice boards that too for just a single day. Interestingly, the notice had no mention of the process and terms/conditions for submitting the tenders.

Ironically, when some the small contractors tried to enquire about the proper tender process, senior officials allegedly dared them to go ahead and submit their tender. "The officials favour a group of contractors and they go all out to ensure that parking contracts are bagged by some chosen ones,'' they alleged.

However, the officials said as the tender was of a short duration it was decided to not publish tender notice in newspapers and instead paste themon official notice boards which was a normal procedure. They also denied favouring any contractor.

On the other hand, the small contractors allege that soon behind closed doors parking tenders worth crores will be jointly decided by the coterie of officials dealing with parking tenders and parking mafia. Once tenders are finalised, motorists will be fleeced by parking attendants and all laid norms openly flouted by them.

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