OTV Investigation: Parking mismanagement cost over Rs 2 crore loss?

Bhubaneswar: Following the order of the Odisha government that apart from the designated sites of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) where it levies fees for parking, no other establishments can collect parking charges, OTV carried out an investigation and found a massive mismanagement which has cost the BMC over Rs 2 crore in 2017.

As per a reality check it was found that BMC officials are now collecting around Rs 900 a day from the parking lot at Unit 1 market while around Rs 5000 was being collected earlier through auctioning the parking arena.

An RTI report OTV has sought revealed that the actual annual amount collected by the BMC in 2017 was Rs 2.2 crore. Surprisingly, only Rs 22.8 lakh was collected in 2018.

However, BMC deputy commissioner Srimanta Mishra said, “They (RTI officials) have given the details of the parking fee collected at the head office only, where the amount (Rs 22.8) has been collected. The detail of the amount collected at the three different zones of the BMC is yet to be received.”

Now, the moot question is, if the three zones haven’t submitted the details for the last couple of years, how was the annual audit report of the department done? On what basis, have the three zones put a hold on crores of money without sending it to the head office?

On the other hand, out of the 72 parking lots under the BMC, tender was floated for only three lots. While 12 parking lots have been allotted to different organisations, spot tender is being done for 22 lots. Fee collection at 33 parking lots has been totally stopped.