Next time when you visit Connaught place, park your car and take the parking receipt from the parking attendant of NDMC and read it carefully. You may get shock of your life the receipt contains a disclaimer “Parking at Owners Risk”. Yes that’s true even if you park your vehicle at designated parking space and receive a legitimate receipt you may lose your vehicle forever. As per the existing parking system the amount charged by municipal council is only  for the rent of the place used for parking and not for security of the vehicle while you are shopping or having food at restaurants. The Municipal council is not responsible if your vehicle is stolen from parking spaces.

There is complete vacuum in terms of the security of the vehicles in a time space where as per a recent report, on an average 110-120 vehicles are being stolen every day in Delhi. These stats become more blood-curdling when they suggest that only 10 percents of motor vehicles theft cases are resolved by the police. Most of these cases of vehicle theft take place either in streets or from parking spaces.

If we examine for a minute the standard practice in these parking spaces maintained by the SDMC, NDMC & EDMC:

The very first thing the parking attendant would ask you after giving you recipients is to hand over your keys  if you have a Car and to keep your handle unlocked if you own a bike. I am sure we all follow the instruction of the attendants but we never realised that they handover a receipt of parking which has a disclaimer that  “Parking at Owners Risk”.  So now you have left your bike unlocked and handed over keys of your car and if that get stolen you can’t claim anything from the municipal councils because they told that you are parking at your own risk. Isn’t that scary and unfair trade practice.

In M/S Hotel Hyatt Regency vs Mr. Atul Virmani case, the Hon’ble National Commission directed that if authorities cannot keep the car safely they should have put a big board at the entrance of the parking spaces proclaiming Beware giving car keys to the valet of this hotel does not ensure safety of your car, Management is not responsible for theft of the car.

It may be noted  that no such boards are found in these spaces. It is a matter of concern that even board would not work as public would be left with no option where to park. This is not the only concern related to parking space security there are other security issues  as well. Many times these attendants just to earn few more pennies give a used receipt that further increases the vulnerability of theft.

So if your car gets stolen you can just file a complaint to police which might not be of great help and you may not be as lucky as the Delhi Chief Minister to get your stolen car back. It is  because of the  very low rate of success of the police to recover stolen vehicles. In 2017 alone 40,692 cases of vehicle theft were registered and only 10% could be resolved.

The draft of new parking policy has already been forwarded but specific  no measures have been suggested for security in the said policy. The current position of parking system must be seriously condemned. The state government shall not run away from its responsibility of not only providing parking spaces but also to provide SECURE PARKING SPACES. The state shall issue appropriate directions and take responsibility of security of the vehicles when they are parked in the designated parking spaces of municipal council.

Advocate Syed Asif of High Court of Delhi having faith in the Delhi Government has written an email to the transport minister of Delhi raising these parking security concerns. The ministry has ensured and replied that the issue has been forwarded for the relevant action  and action report would be provided to him.