KARACHI: The Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has been given charge over the charged parking sites located at Zaibunissa Street and Abdullah Haroon Road. The committee will now shoulder the responsibility of charging vehicle owners for parking their cars at what are arguably the most lucrative parking sites the city has to offer.
A star-studded ceremony was organised at the Jahangir Park on Tuesday to officially hand over the charge to the CPLC. Senior members of the bureaucracy, including Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan, Karachi commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui and Karachi administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, gleamed with pride as they transferred the scheme to the committee.
While the officials present at the ceremony congratulated each other for the 'landmark achievement', others were left wondering why a liaison committee was being given charge over a scheme that already finds no justifying grounds in the rule books.
Dr Raza Gardezi, a member of NGO Shehri that has taken up the matter of charged parking with the provincial ombudsman, was of the view that the CPLC had no legal mandate to regulate any sites of charged parking. "Did the bureaucrats or the CPLC even consult stakeholders or vehicle owners before they took the decision?" he questioned.
His reasoning was echoed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation's charged parking department director, Raza Abbas Rizvi. "The KMC used to make Rs30,000 a day from these sites," he revealed. "The money was used to pay salaries to our employees."
What Rizvi failed to understand was why a citizen-police liaison committee had to do with the regulation of a charged parking site. "It's not like the CPLC are offering insurance to the vehicle owners to justify the increase in charges for the parking sites," he said, adding that the committee will now charge Rs30 for four-wheelers and Rs20 for two-wheelers. "I'm sure the CPLC has enough on their plate with the soaring crime rate in the city. Why would they want to indulge in the regulation of parking sites," he wondered.
On the other hand, the Sindh Tajir Ittehad president Jamil Ahmed Paracha feels that the least the CPLC could do was increase security for the parked vehicles in exchange for the higher rates. "The CPLC should not just make this into a money-making scheme," he warned. "With the lucrative income these sites have to offer, the committee must increase the security arrangements in the areas."
For his part, the CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy justified taking over the parking sites. "We ultimately spend all the profits for the uplift of these areas," he reasoned.
Chinoy told The Express Tribune that they would employ 100 workers as well as 100 student volunteers to regulate the parking areas. "After the deployment of CPLC staff, I can assure that the crime rate and incidents of vehicle theft will decrease considerably."
In response to a question regarding the CPLC's mandate for the regulation of these sites, Chinoy clarified that the CPLC had been doing the same for some time. "Since 1992, we have been maintaining sites in Saddar, Tariq Road and near the Sindh High Court. No one questioned our mandate then."
Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2014.
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