Mysuru:  A day after the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) passed an order making it mandatory for business establishments such as malls to stop collecting parking fee, it was business as usual for parking attendants this morning as they continued to collect parking fee from motorists.

Malls, business establishments, hospitals which charge parking fee from attendants of patients and visitors continued to charge money today and were issuing parking tickets.

Yesterday, acting on complaints from the public about commercial establishments collecting exorbitant parking fee, particularly malls, the Standing Committee on Town Planning of the MCC proposed to make parking of vehicles free in basements in those establishments.

A resolution on ending parking fee was passed by the Standing Committee under the Chairmanship of Nandeesh Preetham on March 6 this year and the council subsequently passed a resolution on May 5, backing the proposal. MCC Commissioner G. Jagadeesha passed an order in this regard on November 20 to provide free parking. Preetham, who had convened a meeting of the committee yesterday, had said the order has come into effect and all the establishments have to obey the diktat.

Copies of the order were despatched to the MCC Development Officers and the concerned Assistant Commissioners in all the nine Zones for immediate implementation.

MCC sources said that since today was the first day, the MCC has not acted on violators. “We will implement the order from now and will visit each commercial establishment to see to it that the order is implemented,” said MCC officers.

Surprisingly, even people did not react over being charged parking fee at malls and bus stand. “Lack of communication and awareness might have made people to pay up. Moreover, office-goers will be in a hurry and they generally will not squabble with parking attendants. We have to spread awareness on the rule,” Officers added.

Speaking to Star of Mysore this morning, MCC Commissioner G. Jagadeesha said that whichever commercial establishment has taken building licences from the MCC, they are bound to obey the rule. “We will act against such establishments if they flout the order,” he said, adding that basements are not meant for trade if the purpose for which the licence was taken was for providing parking.

“To ensure compliance, we will first cut water supply to erring business establishments and malls. Next we will disconnect underground drainage and at the same time will take steps to cut electricity supply,” he said.

Payand-park on Devaraja Urs Road: The much-debated pay-and-park scheme may not be implemented on D. Devaraja Urs Road and Sayyaji Rao Road by the MCC going by the latest order of providing free parking at malls and commercial establishments.

The MCC has been planning to introduce the pay-and-park system to regulate the  premium parking spaces on these roads.

MCC Commissioner G. Jagadeesha said that the corporation intends to ban parking on Devaraja Urs once the road is converted into a Tender SURE road. Tender SURE (Specifications for Urban Road Execution) road standards mandate the integration of networked services under the road – water, sewage, power, OFC, gas, and storm water drains.

“We have initiated a Rs. 12 crore project for Tender SURE Road where the road will be designed in such a way that there will be no digging. It will take over 8 to 9 months for the project to complete and once it is done, parking will not be allowed on Devaraja Urs Road,” the Commissioner said.