Coming as a relief to the commuters and vehicle owners moving through the busy Lal Chowk area of Srinagar city, Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti inaugurated a semi mechanized car parking facility at the old KMD stand on the M. A. Road here today.The car parking facility would be first of its kind in the State, given the technology used in the project.Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Nirmal Singh; Minister for Education, Syed Altaf Bukhari; Minister of State for Housing & Urban Development, Asiea Naqash; legislators, Noor Muhammad Sheikh, Anjum Fazili and Khursheed Alam were present on the occasion.The Chief Minister pressed the button and levers went up automatically, signaling the formal inauguration of the facility. She went round various parking levels and witnessed the parking and retrieval process of the vehicles.CEO, ERA, Vinod Sharma briefed the Chief Minister about the features of the project.The Chief Minister said the need for such a facility was felt for quite long, given the increasing number of vehicles in the city. She hoped the facility would ease traffic congestion at Lal Chowk and around by a great measure.
Mehbooba Mufti directed the concerned agency to devise plans for enhancing the capacity of the parking facility and also pace up work on such facilities elsewhere in the city and the State.This car parking facility would be first of its kind in the State as most of the operations done during car parking would be automatic, including collection of fee and receipts. The drivers will have to just place their vehicles over the automated pellet and it would be automatically placed in the available vacant slot. The vehicle would similarly be retrieved back in the same manner on the automated pellet. The whole process would take around two minutes and would be undertaken with the help of an imported Logic Control Unit.Spread over an area of 1545 square metres in the city’s most busy commercial place, the parking facility has been developed at a cost of Rs. 27.15 crore and would be providing multi level parking to 288 vehicles. The parking facility comprises four bays with each having a parking space for 72 vehicles, besides a commercial complex, office and public convenience.The facility has been built by Economic Reconstruction Agency under the Asian development Bank funding and the project has been completed in two years.Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan; Inspector General of Police (Traffic), Jagjit Kumar; Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar, Dr. Farooq Ahmad Lone; Vice Chairman, Srinagar Development Authority, Tehseen Mustafa and other senior officers, senior citizens, members of business community were present on the occasion.