JMC ‘sells’ roads to private contractors for parking

Motorists are being charged for parking vehicles on roadsides

Having failed to construct multi-storey parking complexes to “decongest” the roads of the winter capital city of the state, the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) seems to have “sold” city roads to private contractors by creating parking spaces on the roadsides to fill its empty coffers.
The irony is that the congested and busy roads have come under the gambit of this new scheme of the civic body that resulted in total chaos and confusion among motorists as these “newly created parking spaces” have virtually reduced the roads to half.
Furthermore, the charging of parking fees from motorists by private contractors, who have acquired contracts for these “new parking spaces”, normally leads to heated arguments on roads.
“It is highly disgusting that the civic body has not been able to construct even a single major multi-storey parking complex in the last one decade. On the other hand, the busy roads have been reduced to half by creating parking space on their sides. We had heated arguments with a private contractor at the busy Gole Market after he charged exorbitantly for the parking of a car along the roadside,” Deepak Jain, an electric goods showroom owner said.
Suresh Sharma, a government teacher, regretted: “It is like city roads have been sold to private contractors who have been charging at their sweet will. Instead of constructing new parking complexes and reducing congestion on city roads, the civic body officers seem to be doing contrary to that”.
He said the civic body had launched new “rehri” zones at different locations of the city to reduce congestion on the roads, but new parking spaces alongside roads were defeating its idea. “It is not only the Municipal Corporation who is the culprit, but the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) is equally responsible for the prevailing mess as the latter has also created a number of parking slots on roads,” he said.
The Jammu Municipal Corporation had planned multi-storey parking complexes at different places in Old City but these projects are yet to see the light of the day due to administrative inertia and legal glitches.
Mandeep Kaur, Commissioner, JMC, could not be contacted for comments, despite repeated attempts.