Millennium Synergy to execute projects at North Mada Street, Mylapore; Pondy Bazaar in T Nagar and CSIR Road in Taramani

COULD this be a panacea to the gigantic parking problems that metros in India are faced with? This week, Chennai is all set to go hi-tech at public parking lots in the city for cars and other fourwheelers. Chennai city mayor, M Subramaniam, is slated to officially inaugurate the first set of four `automated parking meters' in Mylapore's North Mada Street on October 3.

With the stated objective to increase revenues from public parking lots across the city and to check `cash leakage' witnessed in the manual process, the Chennai municipal corporation has opted to install automated parking meters and floated tenders some months ago for three zones North Mada Street, Mylapore; Pondy Bazaar in T Nagar and CSIR Road in Taramani.

Millennium Synergy bagged the tender to execute the project "We have undertaken this project on a BOT (built, own, transfer) basis. These tamper proof parking meters are designed to accept coins in the denominations of Re 1, 2 and 5," said T Thirugnanasambandan, business development manager, Millennium Synergy.

According to him, the parking charges will be Rs 5 per hour. The vehicle can be parked at the most for three hours and a grace time of two hours, making it five hours at the maximum. Beyond that, the vehicle has to be moved to a new slot and fresh parking ticket has to be obtained. This way, parking lots can better serve the floating population rather than being permanently occupied by owners of nearby business establishments.

"The onus of buying the parking ticket will be on the vehicle owners/drivers, who, upon arrival, have to key in the vehicle's four digit number, insert the coin(s) and obtain the ticket, which has to be prominently displayed on the dashboard for the company's attendant to check on its validity," points out Thirugnanasambandan.

"Vehicles parked beyond the permitted time or refusal of owners/drivers to pay the parking charges for the entire duration will be clamped. This can be released only after paying a fine of Rs 300.

Vehicles parked in the zone without a parking ticket will also undergo the same process and we will implement this with help from the local police," he said.

Besides bringing in complete accountability in terms of the usage of the available parking space, the automated parking meters will also prevent cash leakage in any form.

"When the cash box is opened, the machine will generate an automatic denomination slip indicating the total cash in the box and the number of coins complete with their value details," he said.

While Millennium Synergy will install four machines on the North Mada Street stretch, it later plans to install eight machines on the Pondy Bazaar stretch and four near the Ascendas area on the CSIR Road.

Besides these three areas, the company has bagged the tender for nine other locations, which will be taken up for operations in the coming months. Finally, some parking space in a bustling metropolis.