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BMC: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has lodged a complaint with the MRA Marg police against the employees of a parking contractor for overcharging motorists at a pay and parking lot in Kala Ghoda area of South Mumbai. After receiving several complaints in this matter, the process of blacklisting the contractor has also been started after he was found overcharging motorists during a sting operation conducted by the BMC.
According to information received from BMC officials, the contractor was appointed by the BMC to operate a pay and park facility for 100 four-wheelers and 45 two-wheelers near Jehangir Art Gallery and VB Gandhi Marg in Kala Ghoda area.
Employees were charging more than the authorized rates
The fixed fee is Rs 20 per hour for two-wheelers and Rs 70 per hour for four-wheelers, but the BMC received complaints that the contractor’s representatives were charging more than the authorized rates. A sting operation was planned after these complaints. BMC officials conducted the operation at the parking lot in Kala Ghoda using private vehicles and hiding their identity.
During this, the officials found that the contractor’s representatives were charging Rs 150 per hour instead of the prescribed Rs 70 for four-wheelers. Apart from this, the employees also covered the no parking signs installed by the BMC and also used those areas to park vehicles.
Employees were not in uniform
It was also found that some employees were not wearing uniforms or did not have valid identity badges. After this, the BMC lodged a complaint with the police. Further investigation is going on in this matter.
At the same time, Gamdevi Police of Mumbai has also registered a case against 5 parking mafias for parking vehicles on illegal parking and charging more than the fixed amount from the car owners.
The people against whom the case has been registered in this case have been identified as Gautam Kumar Sagal, Gautam Harish Giri, Sushant Sonthan Das, Mant Sanatan Das and Tapas Patnaik.
How was it revealed?
According to Gamdevi police, the accused parking mafia was charging car owners several times more than the fixed amount by parking cars in fake parking lots by claiming it to be BMC parking. When the traffic police took action on a car parked in the fake parking lot, this whole revelation came to light.
According to the information received from Gamdevi police, the complainant in this case, Ankur Sudhir Sachdev, is a resident of Andheri West. On May 13, he had gone to Girgaon Chowpatty with his friend for some work. When he was parking his car at Sukh Sagar signal at Girgaon Chowpatty, the accused Gautam Sagal came and told him that there is a BMC public parking next to it and he should park his car there. The youth charged him Rs 100 for one hour for parking.
When Sachdev returned after an hour, he saw that the policemen were taking action on his car. When he inquired with the policemen, he came to know that the place where he had parked his car was not the authorized parking of BMC.
During this time, apart from the complainant, the policemen also took action against two other vehicles which were parked in the same unauthorized parking. Investigation revealed that the accused had charged Rs 100 more than the parking charge in the authorized parking of BMC. Investigation by Gamdevi police also revealed that all the accused were committing such fraud with people for the last several days at the behest of the parking owner Tapas Patnaik.
