Park for over 24 hours in New Delhi? Expect towing, storage fees

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has invited bids for operation as well as upgradation of all of its 157 parking sites across New Delhi into smart parking facilities. The new smart parking system in the New Delhi municipal area will flag any vehicles parked for more than 24 hours with steep towing and storage charges, senior officials said.

Under this system, the night parking fee will be doubled in comparison to the normal rate per hour.

With real-time slot availability and booking as well as digital payments, the parking rates across the area are also expected to witness a steep hike of up to 40-50%. The charges for monthly passes will also go up by two to three times of existing rates. The parking management system will discourage parking over 24 hours and during the night hours.

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Vehicles parked beyond 24 hours may be towed

The project report states the smart parking management system (PMS) will keep a check on vehicles which are parked for more than 24 hours.

“PMS shall check on a daily basis whether or not the vehicles that have entered the parking lots have exited and generate an alert, if any vehicle is overstaying in the parking lot for over 24 hours, to the NDMC and Delhi Police for further disposal of action,” the report says.

NDMC officials said that if any such vehicle is flagged for being parked for 24 hours, such vehicle will be towed and parked at the designated towed vehicle parking site and applicable charges will be levied. These charges will also be applicable on vehicles towed away for being parked in no parking zones.

Towing and storage charges

The towing charges for cars will be ₹1,000 along with ₹500 per day as storage charges; light goods vehicle will pay ₹3,000 as towing charges with ₹1,000 per day as storage charges; medium passenger vehicles will be liable to pay ₹3,000 towing charges and ₹1,000 as custody/storage charges.

The project report also states that the night parking fee after 24 hours shall be double of normal rate per hour.

Parking hours and smart technology

“The agency has to run the parking lots in the market area at least from 08:00 hours to 24:00 hours, for non-market areas from 8am to 11pm. NDMC reserves the right to ask the agency to run any parking lots beyond 11pm hours in non-market areas and beyond 12midnight in market areas as per requirement. The Agency will identify and operate such Parking lots where there is requirement for Parking between 10pm to 2am hours after intimation to the NDMC,” the report adds.

NDMC, which currently manages these parking facilities, has also invited tenders to hand over operations to a private contractor that will also be responsible for the upgrade. The project will cover around 15,060 equivalent car spaces (ECS) across 157 parking sites.

The proposed smart parking system will replace manual parking operations with technology-enabled facilities, including automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, FASTag readers, boom barriers and digital displays showing the availability of vacant spaces.