BHUBANESWAR: Realtors or individual owners looking to get their building plans approved by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) must have minimum parking space marked in the layout, with the civic body planning to strictly implement this provision.
The move came considering the current situation where several houses, particularly individual buildings, don’t have enough parking space on their premises resulting in the vehicles being parked on public roads leading to congestion.
The problem is paramount on the internal roads where congestion is not the only problem but also affects the sanitation services as the civic body staff face a tough time cleaning the areas due to the parking of vehicles on the roads.
The matter was raised in a recent council meeting where the planning and development standing committee of the civic body had passed a unanimous resolution that no new building plan will be approved unless parking space is made available in its layout.
“Many individual houses do not have enough parking space on their premises. The owners park their vehicles on the roads, which creates problems. Many posh localities like Nayapalli, Saheed Nagar and Acharya Vihar face this problem,” chairman of the standing committee, Sridhar Jena, said.
Jena said many times while the owners keep their vehicles in their reserved space, they often ask their tenants to keep theirs on the road due to space constraints. “We are working out a solution for the issue,” he said.
He further said the committee has decided not to approve any new building plan that does not have parking provision keeping the future developments in mind. “We will scrutinise applications as per the norms. Public awareness will also be increased on the matter,” Jena said.
Residents, however, demanded the civic body should look into the parking problem in the core areas of the city seriously. “Many apartments do not have enough parking space,” Chinmay Mohapatra, a tenant living in an apartment in Bomikhal, said.
Chinmay said though he does not want to keep his car on the road, he is forced to do so due to space constraints.
