CMC parking fee or plundering general public

Saturday, 20 July 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A fine without due and convenient arrangements, to be charged as parking fee by the parking company employed by Colombo Municipal Council, is a plundering of the vehicle users of CMC parking slots. It was sad and shocking to learn how inconvenient it was and we were tricked as they rob the users of parking slots of CMC by installing parking machines.

Recently CMC had installed parking payment machines in the parking spaces of either side of Colombo Road. Charging a parking fee is acceptable and no argument for that, but it is pathetic to learn the blundering state of how the parking fee arrangement has been made. This needs urgent attention of all relevant authorities and political hierarchy the country is governed by. There are small notices that we have to pay parking fees and the machines had been installed there. But these machines are not user-friendly at all; then there is a mobile app (these two options cannot be accepted as the majority of the drivers cannot be expected to use smartphone or be so technical-savvy apart from using English instructions); both options are a nuisance to vehicle users in the city.

When my driver had to accidently park my car in the allocated space in the road at the side of a newly open supermarket in Kollupitiya, there was no person or notice in the parking place to make a parking fee. Later on they had put a notice of parking violation fine as the car had been parked without paying the parking fee.

How reasonable is this? Can the general public be fined in such an unfair manner, because despite of person, machines or notice not being available at the relevant space, available machine in the other areas are not user-friendly and hardly usable by the general public due to several constraints (lack of literacy, language skills and unfriendly machine had complexity, etc.).

This is where they tricked the general public to a fine without making proper arrangement for paying parking fees. The worse is it comes without such assistance. I had to call the parking company to know how to pay and then their response was to install a mobile app to pay the fine… how funny is this? Then I had to go to Liberty Plaza since neither the machine nor the call had helped to pay the fine from a machine.

Then a real shock was revealed that a Rs. 1,500 fine had to be paid as the minimum one minute had exceeded from the 120 minutes allowed.

Does this company believe that they are deploying the shortest way to become the country wonder of Asia through plundering the general public? As a common man’s view, I strongly believe this must be stopped; hence the relevant authority has to take urgent actions. Regardless of politics I believe both the President and PM may pay their due attention as responsible Head of State and Head of Government for an immediate action to protect people from this kind of unfair exhaustion.

Ajith Kumara