HYDERABAD: The District Traffic Management Board on Monday reduced number of points for charged parking from 63 to only 19 following objections by administration officials and decided that henceforward Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) would allow charged parking only after the approval of the board.

The board took the decision after the HMC started claiming parking fees from residents at several places in the city. The board is led by Fuad Ghaffar Soomro, deputy commissioner Hyderabad.

HMC administrator Mohammad Farooq and municipal commissioner were informed on April 7 about the board`s decisions and urged the board to send listof charged parking sites sent by HMC`s municipal corporation to Hyderabad DIG Pir Mohammad Shah for his final opinion on March 10.

DIG constituted a committee comprising SSP Amjad Ahmed Shaikh, SP traffic Dawoodur Rehman and board`s honourary secretary Javed Iqbal which submitted its report to DIG after taking input from traffic police`s section officers.

According to the April 7 letter, the chairman informed HMC administrator that the DIG held a meeting to discuss the list of charged parking. The meeting took some decisions regarding charged parking.

According to minutes of the meeting dated March 30, it was resolved that the streets or roads that had been widened in the middle or at their end points should be bifurcated for creating parking spaces.

It decided that wider points of the streets or roads should be allowed for parking and all those points which were clogged or smaller ones should not be used for parking.The board`s chairman informed the administrator that all those points that had been exempted from parking had been clearly mentioned in the letter in a separate column. In view of the DIG`s meeting and subsequent minutes, the chairman was allowing parking space with certain conditions.

According to the board chairman, vehicles would be parked on the left side of the road within the line and parking staff would use reflecting jackets and HMC or contractor`s staff would be responsible for parking vehicles in an orderly manner.

The chairman said that no pushcarts would be allowed behind the parked vehicles to ensure smooth flow of traffic and parking staff would make sure it was followed. The staff could call anti-encroachment staff as well for assistance, he said.

He informed the administrator that HMC`s anti-encroachment cell staff would remove all soft encroachments on and around the roads because the new parking and encroachment hadobstructed flow of traffic.

The administrator was informed that the contractor would be directed to comply with the conditions. If any obstruction was witnessed in the flow of traffic on notified spaces or routes the chairman could de-notify the spots.

After the HMC allowed around 63 points for charged parking the matter was taken up in the board meeting that reduced to just 19 following objections by administration officials at different levels.

HMC had explained its position but it was not accepted.

HMC had sent a list of 60 charged parking points including spaces outside wedding halls but the board`s chairman had directed HMC administrator to deploy HMC`s traffic warden along with traffic police for checking violation of one way route, wrong parking, lining of pushcarts on shoulder of the road. He had asked the administrator to follow Ramazan traffic plan especially on all busiest arteries, commercial areas etc.