Finance and Contract Committee of Municipal Corporation (F&CC), in its last meeting, had decided to regulate one of the parking lots through electronic toll system. This decision was taken after finding that the token system introduced to ensure the safety of vehicles had not been effective.

On trial basis, the paid parking lot in sector 17 “Gurudev Parking” was selected for the experiment and bids were invited from contractors to introduce the system. The idea was however dropped after MC officials found that bidders did not show any interest in the proposal. Now after around a month, the civic authorities are once again going to float the tenders to revive the proposal.

“Installation of electronic toll system in the paid parking will help in keeping the complete detail of vehicles like registration number besides timings of entry and exit. This would have ensured the safety of vehicles against theft. But contractors were not interested in the proposal, fearing electronic equipment would not work properly under harsh weather conditions,” a senior MC official said.

The contractors were apprehensive as they opined that the maintenance of the electronic equipment would not be easy in the wake of them being not easily available, the official further informed.

Nominated councillor MPS Chawla, heading the committee constituted to streamline the paid parking system, said installation of electronic toll system in the paid parkings would help streamlining the system. Citing the example of Bangalore Airport where such system is working effectively, he said MC should make efforts to introduce electronic toll system at the earliest as the token system has totally failed.