Illegal parking plagues in Bhowanipore; Civic body writes to cops about the issue
Telegraph | 18 March 2025
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has written to Kolkata Police highlighting illegal parking on several roads in Bhowanipore.
Ramesh Mitra Street, Chakraberia Road, Townsend Road and Puddapukur Road were among the roads where teams from the civic body found cars illegally parked along the road, reducing their width and slowing down traffic.
In the last few years, the traffic volume on interior roads in Bhowanipore has gone up significantly, said an officer of Kolkata Police’s traffic department. Now, many cars use internal roads, bypassing the arterial roads, to reach their destination.
Many houses in Bhowanipore also do not have garages. The owners park their cars on the road. The old houses were built when very few people owned cars and very few houses had garages. The residents could not modify their houses to carve out space for a garage once they started owning cars.
“The letter was written about a month ago. Our teams visit all parts of the city to assess the ground reality of car parking. During these visits, they came across several roads in Bhowanipore where cars were parked illegally,” said a senior KMC official.
“We have requested the police to take necessary action,” said the official.
Debashis Kumar, the mayoral council member heading KMC’s car parking department, said they have also received complaints from some residents.
“The area around Golmath in Bhowanipore always has vehicles with commercial number plates parked along the road. The residents often face trouble taking out their cars,” said Kumar.
Another KMC official said the roads did not have a “No Parking” board, which appears to have emboldened drivers to park their cars on these roads.
The Kolkata Police and the KMC jointly announce some roads as fee parking zones. Some stretches are announced as no-parking zones and the police put up boards along these stretches.
Confusion arises on stretches without any boards to announce them as either a parking zone or a no-parking zone.
“The problem of cars remaining parked along a road is common across Calcutta and more so in old Calcutta where many houses do not have garages. The owners of these houses park their cars on the road,” said the police officer.
“In Bhowanipore, another problem is that many residents own more than one car. Even in the new standalone apartments, the residents own one parking space, but they have two cars. The second car remains parked on the road,” said the officer.
The paucity of car parking space is a challenge across the city. In central Calcutta, including Esplanade, Chandni Chowk and Burrabazar, parking attendants charge many times more than the authorised parking rates. Many people give in to their demands as finding another parking space is virtually impossible.
“There are many parts in central Calcutta where parking attendants charge ₹50 an hour or even more, while KMC’s authorised rate for cars is ₹10 an hour,” said a central Calcutta resident.