Buying a car in the national capital may become costlier as the civic bodies are mulling a steep increase in one-time parking fee, seeking also to put a check on the rising number of vehicles in the streets and the resulting pollution.
The plan will come up for discussion in the North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Standing Committee meet tomorrow, a senior municipal official said.
The proposal, if approved, will push prices of two-wheelers by at least 1,000 while the cost of high-end cars would be raised by several lakhs.
Roads in Delhi are getting clogged with burgeoning number of vehicles and the move seeks to lower incidents of road rage, curtail traffic snarls and ease groaning parking lots.
The move comes days after the Supreme Court ordered city authorities to impose environment tax on commercial vehicle entering the national capital, the aim being to curtain the toxic fumes discharged into the air.
Many NGOs and environment bodies have also warned about rising air pollution level in the national capital.
According to the plan, owners of four-wheelers (cars) costing up to Rs 4 lakh will pay Rs 8,000 as the one-time parking fee, from its existing slab of Rs 2,000.
For vehicles costing above Rs 4 lakh, from the existing fee of Rs 4,000, the new slab would range from 4-15 per cent.
So, owners of a vehicle costing above Rs 40 lakh would have to cough up 15 per cent of the vehicle value.
For commercial vehicle like buses, the fee will jump from Rs 4,000 to Rs 32,000.
Auto-rickshaws, which are currently exempted from it, would attract Rs 2,000 annually.
A two-wheeler costing less than Rs 60,000 would have to pay Rs 1,000, while those priced above it would pay 2 per cent of the vehicle cost, as per the plan.
Delhi has about 7.5 million cars with about 1,200 more being added every day, according to studies.
The last time the rates were revised was in 2004 and as the number of cars has increased tremendously over the past decade, the change in rate is being mulled, a senior civic official said.
The move is being proposed by the NDMC but South and East Corporations too are likely to make similar decisions, but no such confirmation as yet, from their sides.
Parking charge are levied and collected from both non-commercial and commercial vehicles by Delhi Government’s Transport Department at the time of the registration of all new vehicles.