MUMBAI: On Thursday, the residents of Malabar Hill, irked about parking tickets being suddenly handed out around Hanging Gardens, wrote a letter to the traffic commissioner, calling for a specific parking policy on the stretch of road between Kamla Nehru Park and Hanging Gardens. A letter signed by 55 people from the Friends of Malabar Hill, a residents group, demanded clarification on the public parking policy, and asked for clear and visible signage, prior communication with residents and specific time slots for senior citizens and daily park goers.
Locals said that in the last two days, the traffic police had started rampantly penalising vehicles, saying it was due to VIP movement. “So far, whenever there was VIP movement, we were asked to clear the road and park elsewhere, but in the last two days the officials have just started imposing penalties on us,” said Reemma Dalal, a resident who goes for evening walks with her senior citizen mother regularly. “They now ask us to park at Nepean Sea Road, which is at quite a distance and highly inconvenient for us.”
According to the residents, the No Parking signs that were recently put up are scarcely visible. “Going to parks in our vicinity now costs us ₹500 and ₹1,000 thanks to the parking fines,” said Kamni Sharma, another resident.
“What is most troubling is that these penalties are allegedly imposed under the blanket excuse of VIP movement. No citizen communication or prior warning is ever issued to inform us that parking is restricted for the day, yet fines are levied without consideration or logic,” said the letter.
Several digital receipts of the fine term the violation as ‘Obstruction to pedestrians’. Citizens, who have been parking at the location for decades, highlighted that the road was over 300 metres wide and perfectly capable of supporting safe roadside parking without obstructing traffic. “No instance of obstruction has taken place so far, and we don’t foresee any in the future. What then is the reason for the fines?” asked Sharma.
When questioned, a senior traffic official said that the Hanging Gardens area, which is to be brought under a Pay and Park policy by the BMC, was still in the tendering process. “Till then, it is considered as a No Parking zone,” he said. “But this being a grey area, we will have a discussion with the citizens and bring it to a conclusion.”