The 10-year-old multilevel parking project on the premises of Town Hall here is expected to be completed soon, making way for the hassle-free parking of vehicles in the central business district (CBD), ending the parking problems faced by the motorists in the vicinity.
A project of Mysuru City Corporation (MCC), it had remained unfinished and the motorists could not park their vehicles in the absence of facilities with certain works remaining. Despite spending a large sum of money on it, the facility could not be thrown open for public use when the CBD was faced with a severe parking crisis with a steep rise in vehicles.
This is the city’s first State-funded parking project which was launched with much fanfare, claiming to accommodate a large number of four-wheelers and two-wheelers.
The project was taken up to ease the parking problem on the city’s commercial hubs - D. Devaraj Urs Road, Sayyaji Rao Road and Ashoka Road - which have limited parking space, especially for four-wheelers. It was taken up at an estimated cost of ₹18.28 crore in 2011-12.
When Minister in-charge of Mysuru district S.T. Somashekar inspected the parking facility on Monday on knowing its non-utilisation, the MCC engineers apprised him about the problems faced by the facility, especially the waterlogging in the underground level of parking space.
The project was designed to accommodate 600 cars, and 1,000 two-wheelers and an amphitheatre on the roof-top to facilitate open-air cultural events in the core heritage zone (CHZ).
The Minister told the MCC officials to take necessary measures for finishing the project.
The MCC would require funds for this and the issue is expected to be taken up with the Department of Urban Development.
The engineers also told the Minister that the completion of the project may also ease traffic congestion in the surrounding roads which get choked with four-wheelers occupying space and not much space was available for the free movement of vehicles.
The Minister told the MCC Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde, who was present, that the city and its roads would look impressive with a centralised vehicle parking facility.
In fact, the MCC wanted to bring in the ‘pay and park’ scheme on D. Devaraja Urs Road to ease the parking crisis but it remained a non-starter as it got no support from the elected representatives. Even the projects of building multi-level parking lots saw no headway.
The MCC had proposed multilevel parking infrastructure at Gaadi Chowk off D. Devaraj Urs Road and at the plot in front of KSRTC mofussil bus stand, on the advice of the Urban Development Department.
The MCC, however, did not make any progress in its plan.
The city traffic police have now proposed a four-hour parking rule on Urs Road, which appears to be imminent as a consensus has been reached among the shop-keepers and other stakeholders over the proposal of police for easing parking woes, particularly in peak hours. As a majority of the four-wheelers parked on the road belonged to the shop keepers, depriving parking space for the shoppers and tourists, the police came up with the idea of introducing the rule where no four-wheeler could be parked beyond four hours.
