The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has identified 11 parking agencies that have not yet procured point-of-sale (POS) machines, which the civic body introduced in April to make transactions in parking bays transparent.
A senior KMC official said the 11 agencies could be “blacklisted”, which means they may not be allowed to submit bids when the next tender for handing management rights of parking bays along roads is floated.
The KMC had asked agencies managing parking bays to use POS machines so the practice of overcharging by parking attendants could be stopped.
The POS machines record the time when a vehicle is parked and when it exits the parking bay. The owner of a vehicle is supposed to be given a slip that mentions the time of entry and exit and the amount to be paid.
The presence of electronic records, generated by POS machines, will prevent attendants from charging morethan the approved rates, KMC officials said.
Though attendants in most parking bays in the city are not using POS machines, most of the agencies have procured the gadgets, though not always in adequate numbers.
“Eleven agencies did not procure a single machine. These agencies never applied to us for the machines,” the KMC official said.
“We are thinking about strong action against these agencies for not participating in the procurement process. They may be blacklisted, which means these agencies will not be able to submit bids for managing parking bays when a tender to allocate parking management rights is floated next,” the official said.
Payments through POS machines have to be made electronically. They may be done by debit or credit cards or through online payment apps.
The idea behind doing away with cash transactions was to have a record of the money charged for parking a vehicle. In case of any complaint of overcharging, the digital records will help the authorities find out the truth.
The KMC had last allocated management rights to agencies in 2013-14 following an open tender. Since then the tenure of the agencies has been extended.
A tender to allocate the rights was floated earlier this year but it had to be cancelled after mayor Firhad Hakim wanted the entire process to go online. The tender that was floated required interested parties to submit bids in the physical format.
No fresh tender has been floated since.
Sources said a fresh tender will be floated only after the state government responds to the KMC’s letter asking what should be the parking rates in the city. The KMC had to roll back raised parking rates within 7 days of introducing them in April.
The KMC has also decided to issue “show-cause notices” to 14 parking agencies that did not attend a meeting last month where the civic body held discussions on the use of POS machines.
It’s not clear whether the 14 agencies included the 11 agencies that have not procured any POS machines.
