Parking fee up by 1400% at Central Railway station

Bengaluru: The Southern Western Railways has hiked the parking fee by a whopping 1400% at KSR (City Railway Station). Earlier, parking a four-wheeler attracted a fee of only `20 a day, which now has been hiked to `300. There are also frequent complaints about the absence of display of proper tariff boards at parking lots at all the railway stations in the city. This has now forced the Bangalore Railway Division to order all contractors to display such boards at three prominent spots within the premises.

According to the order issued by Senior Divisional Commercial Manager the signboard should specify the station name, the GST charged, GST number and the parking tariff.

"For a `10 journey to Majestic, I end up paying `300 as parking fee and I really don’t know how this exorbitant fee makes sense and also many times I have experienced parking fee being charged depending on their mood. So now, the division has come up with a strict rule on display boards, so they also should make some rule on the charges," says Pradeep B.  

The SWR also specified in the order that computerised bar-coded coupon needs to be issued with handheld terminals by the staff at the parking lot.  A Railway official says, “It is all because of repeated complaints and also because of our vigilance team from Hubballi who were charged `80 for parking at the KSR railway station when the actual cost was `60. The Railway Division has ordered for special drives by its staff at all stations to ensure orders are being complied with.”

The commuters have accepted the new rule but have however started demanding a rollback in parking fees because they contend that a low parking fee encourages people to park and use public transport, leading to less congestion on roads. But officials have so far not reacted to the demand from the commuters to cut the parking fee.