LAHORE, Nov 23: The charged parking introduced in various city areas by the City District Government has failed to improve parking facilities provided to the public.

Parks, roads and shopping centres, where parking fee is being charged directly and indirectly by the CDG, have not shown any sign of improvement in facilities.

One such example is the Wapda House and Hafeez Centre where the charged parking has failed to achieve desirable result, except for creating a new source of income for the CDG.

The contractor’s employees sitting with a barrier on the main entrance from Ganga Ram Hospital, Fatima Jinnah Road to Mozang Road charge Rs10 from each motorcycle and Rs15 for every car.

Almost all the major shopping centres, hospitals, parks, markets, airport, railway stations in both Cantonment and CDG areas have charged parking.

The CDG and Cantonment staff and their contractors in various areas realize parking charges while in hospitals and markets either their administration or unscrupulous elements subject motorists to forced parking tax.

At all hospitals in particular, the attendants have to pay for each visit despite the fact that they have been frequenting between pharmacies and laboratories situated outside the hospitals.

Similarly at almost all roads and boulevards, the traffic police in connivance with the corrupt, do not touch vehicles that have been parked for washing purpose by getting parking tokens.

Vehicles having their vipers removed from the windscreen are not subjected to any routine charged parking because every car owner now has to pay Rs25 for the “forced” cleaning of his vehicle.

The traffic police remove vehicles parked in “no parking” areas with complete disregard of the fact that the area is also full of pushcarts and vendors’ stalls on footpaths and carriageways.

Sources said vendors and pushcart holders were not subjected to any action because they regularly made payment to the traffic police and CDG or Cantonment staff concerned.

The government’s claim that the revenue generated through charged parking will be spent on improving transport and traffic projects in cooperation with the CDG, the traffic police and other agencies has always turned out to be a farce, they said.—PPI