Government wants to make proof of parking space manadatory before you buy a car

If you are planning to buy a brand new car this new year, make sure you have specified parking space as well. The government is planning to make it a norm to produce proof of parking before placing an order of new car at dealerships.

"I am very keen on this. I am talking to the surface transport minister and also sensitising the states. We would be moving in that direction," Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.

"Space crunch for parking and congestion in cities are big concerns. We're serious about decongestion of roads," an official told TOI.
The plan to make cities across the country congestion free has been welcomed at the initial levels. To make this successful, the states need to intimidated and agreed upon. While registration of vehicles is done by state transport departments, but municipal bodies deal with parking issues. This means that state governments need to agree on the fact. Moreover, barring people to buy new vehicles should ideally be preceded with making efficient public transport available.

"The proposed measures to curb purchase of cars in the city are not unusual -many large metropolitan cities across the world have imposed such restrictions on car ownership with a fair amount of success. Such measures coupled with the increase in public transport infrastructure shall help free public space as well as reduce pollution. If these measures are implemented in a planned way and logically, will go a long way towards decontesting the city and are welcome steps towards the goal of making Delhi a true metropolis," an architect and urban planner Sudhir Vohra, told TOI.

Experts also want the government to take other steps such as hiking parking charges, levying charges for using private vehicles in congested areas and increasing interest rate for car loans to discourage people from buying vehicles. The metros cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru are choking everyday with innumerable cars. While making roads bigger isn’t possible everywhere, curbing on car purchase is the next attempt to make cities liveable.