Uttarakhand State Parking (Site Selection, Construction and Operation etc.) Rules, 2022

• 21 Dec 2022

Why In News?

• On December 20, 2022, the Uttarakhand Cabinet approved the Uttarakhand State Parking (Site Selection, Construction and Operation etc.) Rules, 2022 to overcome the problem of parking in the state.

Key Points

• Under the Uttarakhand State Parking (Site Selection, Construction and Operation etc.) Rules, 2022, open parking will now be made on agricultural land in the state. For this, there will be no need to change the land use nor any other government hurdles.
• Under this policy, parking will be constructed in four categories. Parking will be built on government land from the government level. Any person will be able to build parking on private lands. Private developers will also be able to build parking on government land, while on private lands, the government will be able to build parking.
• Those who build parking lots in the state will get electricity rebate at the rate of one rupee per unit for five years. The government will not charge them sub-divisional charge or development charge. Local youth will also be able to construct parking by taking a loan under The Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Tourism Self Employment Scheme.
• If a hotel, restaurant, hospital or college builds its own parking elsewhere, then it will have to follow the rules and keep a part of that parking for public parking, so that people coming from outside can park vehicles here.
• A committee will be formed under the chairmanship of the Vice Chairman of the concerned Development Authority for the selection of parking lots in all the cities in the state and the tariff charged there. This committee will include the Superintendent of Police or his nominated member, representative of the Town Planning Department, Additional District Magistrate Administration, Chief Municipal Officer or Executive Officer from the local body, Traffic Inspector, Fire Officer.
• It is noteworthy that due to lack of adequate parking in the tourist season in the state, there are long jams at tourist places like Mussoorie and Nainital. People either return or somehow move forward after struggling with the jam for hours. After the parking policy comes, there will be so much parking that people will not have trouble parking their vehicles.
• It is known that the number of vehicles is increasing at the rate of about 300 percent in the state. At the time of formation of the state, there were three lakh 63 thousand 916 vehicles, which has now increased to about 28 lakh 80 thousand 520. The number of private vehicles is more than 26 lakh.