KOLKATA: With the rise in the number of flights and passengers at the airport owing to the resumption of international operations and the introduction of summer schedule, violations involving VIP vehicles — an old problem at the airport — is back again. The authorities have designated a free parking zone 100m before the airport gates to prevent unauthorised parking of VIP and police vehicles in front of the terminal but are still struggling to stop violations.
“We have set up a separate channel on the approach road to the arrival gates of the terminal where VIP cars can be parked under the shade of the elevated road that goes till the departure terminal. However, drivers of VIP vehicles still park on the space in front of the airport terminal and crowd the gates. We do plead before them to remove their vehicles and park them at the designated zone but on most occasions, they don’t pay heed and we don’t dare to book them either,” said an official of the parking agency employed by the airport authorities.
Among the violators are state government vehicles fitted with beacons and boards on wind shields and back of the cars to proclaim they belonged to the government, cars belonging to police, politicians and magistrates as well. A section of police and airport staff also park their bikes outside the departure zone.
As per the rule, vehicles are allowed to stay inside the airport premises for free for a maximum of 10 minutes, during which they need to enter the airport, pick up/drop the passengers and leave. The time allotted to stand in front of the airport gates is only three minutes. If they wish to stay any longer, they need to park their car at the designated parking zones. “If some cars take more than three minutes to pick up or drop passengers, we give them a two-minute warning before penalising them,” said the agency official.
A senior Kolkata airport official said during the recent coordination meetings, the issue was highlighted and they had alerted Bidhannagar Commissionerate officers to take the necessary steps, but without much success. “Cops themselves park their cars. It was fine over the last two years but with passenger traffic increasing to pre-pandemic levels, the problem has returned to haunt us,” said the official.
Bidhannagar City police officers, however, said they try not to park their cars blocking the gates but added it was the job of the parking agency to take action against unauthorised vehicles.
