Last year in July, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi announced a proposal to set up 3,000 parking lots on 2,500 roads which include commercial and mixed land use stretches. A majority of them were supposed to be automated stack parking sites. However, even as the civic agency is busy collecting parking and conversion charges from the traders on these streets, this ambitious plan remains more or less on paper.

According to MCD officials, they had managed to collect Rs 56 crore as parking charges and around Rs 90 crore as conversion charges till September last year.

The civic body will continue to collect these charges till March 31 and claims that the money is going to be used for creating new infrastructure. Said standing committee chairman Vijender Gupta: ``We want to spend the money collected as conversion charges and parking charges on providing facilities such as parking, roads and streetlights on the notified stretches. But this can take place only over a period. We are in the process of identifying new parking sites.''

The MCD also collects charges for purchase of new cars and tendering of parking sites etc.

It had made the proposal for creating 3,000 sites after the Supreme Court had asked it to submit a report on its plans to develop the city's infrastructure. The court had raised this issue after several roads were converted to commercial and mixed land use under Master Plan 2021. Along with this, the civic agency was also supposed to come up with traffic circulation plans for market areas.