The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, India, is pioneering a radical business model for car parks that it hopes will rapidly increase parking capacity in the region – however the new concept is being met with some push back by civic authorities.
This summer, BMC unveiled plans to build seven underground multi-level parking lots in south Mumbai – which would double existing capacity in the area from 700 to 1,400 spaces. The underground parking is meant to replace current above-ground car parks, making more room for traffic and pedestrians in this commercial center.
"The cost of building – which works out to over 2.5 million rupees per space – will be entirely borne by BMC," explains Ashok Datar, founder and chairman of Mumbai Environmental Social Network, who was also consulted by BMC for the underground car parks. "Then the operators will charge the rates - about 15 rupees per hour - to cover only operating costs."
The Mumbai civic standing committee has attempted to block progress on the underground car parks several times. It all comes down to the contractors, which the committee believes have been chosen unfairly. What seems to bother the committee most, however, is the BMC's unorthodox business model for the car parks, which will allow the contractors who build and maintain the lots to keep the revenue for 30 years. After this period, the lots will revert to BMC ownership at no cost to the BMC.
The BMC counters by pointing out that this is not a scam; it is a way to rapidly increase parking capacity. BMC says it is not economically feasible to maintain the parking lots on its own, so handing the responsibility – and the revenue – over to the contractors may be the only way to get South Mumbai the parking capacity it desperately needs today.
In a blog in August and a full article in the October-November issue of Parking World, I covered some of the challenges of parking in India, and specifically in Mumbai. This city needs to take some new approaches to solving its extensive parking problems, and unless corruption can be proven with regard to these specific projects, the BMC should be given freedom to experiment with non-traditional economic models that work.
Pete Goldin
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