Times of India ( 30 Jan )
carries following news :
“ HC wants to know how many
people have more than one car “
‘ Do Buyers Have
Parking Space For New Cars ? ’
The Bombay high court on Monday directed the
Maharashtra transport department to furnish data on how
many persons in Mumbai had more than one car registered under their names.
The bench asked the authorities to submit details
of vehicles registered in Mumbai in a day. The judges sought to know from the
state government and the BMC about steps taken to verify if
new buyers of four-wheelers in the city had sufficient parking space for their
vehicles.
“ There is tremendous pressure on local
infrastructure. You are depriving an ordinary person who cannot afford a car
from even using the road as there is no space for pedestrians to
walk,” said Justice Patil.
“ Already,
there are over 32 lakh vehicles in the city. You cannot allow the situation to
worsen."
The court suggested once again that it was
necessary to put restrictions on persons who buy new vehicles.
“ Individuals are buying more than one car. You
should place restrictions and permit registration of a new car only if the
owner proves he has place to park it.”
The bench, headed by Justice Patil, had made the suggestion in 2015.
Advocate Sharan Jagtiani, appointed as amicus
curiae (friend of the court) to assist the proceedings, pointed to an affidavit
where a deputy town planning officer had mentioned that legislation is pending
before Parliament to make it mandatory to show availability of parking as a pre-condition
for registration of vehicles.
The bench said the city needs more parking spaces.
“Mumbai needs more multilevel parking lots ? There is no reason why restrictions
in place in other cities on the entry of vehicles
cannot be placed in Mumbai. Think about vehicular pollution and the impact it
has on the health of children,” the judge said.
The court has
scheduled the matter for further hearing on February 2016. Raiyani cited press
reports to point out that while the vehicle count in Mumbai had increased, the
city’s length of roads had remained constant at 2,000 km for many years.
MY TAKE :
There can be no argument about the need to reduce
traffic congestion and vehicular pollution in Mumbai / Maharashtra / India
It is also very clear that the “ Long Term “ solution lies in “ Efficient Public Transport “
There may even be some case for various “ Short Term “ measures such as :
·
Restricting entry of outside vehicles
·
Restricting only ONE CAR per family ( - or
, was that “ one car per person “ ? )
I urge all the
stake-holders to examine PROS and CONS of each solution , in light of the
following views / arguments :
Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba
Group, said on Monday it plans to make live traffic predictions and recommendations to increase traffic
efficiency in
Kuala Lumpur by crunching data gathered from video footage, traffic bureaus,
public transportation systems and mapping apps
POLLUTIONSOLUTION , aka " PollSolv " [
30 Dec
2015 ]
PUBLICTRANSPORT AS A SOLUTION ? [ 16 Feb 2016
]
One Carper Family ? [ 27 Sept 2016
]
A KneeJerk Approach ? [ 22 Dec 2016 ]
Un-ImplementableLaws : Unstoppable Corruption [ 20 Feb 2017 ]
Internetof Vehicles ( IoV ) ? [ 04 Mar 2017
]
UrbanTransport Policy [ 09 June 2017
]
Whydon’t they park in their flats ? [ 01 Sept
2017 ]
ATrail-Blazing Urban Transport ? [ 22 Sept
2017 ]
ParkingMess ? It will get worse ! [ 01 Jan 2018
]
31 Jan 2018
www.hemenparekh.in
/ blogs