ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Friday launched the first-ever digital car parking project of Islamabad at G-8 Markaz.

CDA Chairman Mohammad Ali Randhawa along with board members visited G-8 Markaz for launching the project. Member Technology and Digitisation Nauman Khalid briefed the chairman about the project. Initially, free-of-cost parking has been provided to create public awareness of the initiative.

Sources said the CDA will not charge parking fee for about 10 days. A digital parking system is also being installed in the parking lot adjacent to Centaurs Mall and in F-7, which will be made functional on September 25.

At a later stage, the system will be introduced in other commercial areas, including the Blue Area parking plaza, which is under construction. The member technology said people can make digital payment through seven options, including a credit card, debit card, QR code, scratch card and cash through machines.

The CDA chairman said the revenue obtained from digital parking will be used for the uplift of the same market. He said that digital parking will improve business and economy in the city.

System also being installed in parking lot adjacent to Centaurs Mall and in F-7, says official

An official of the CDA said that a joint venture of Pakistani and Chinese companies had won the five-year contract. He said under an agreement, CDA will get 75pc revenue while the contractor will get 25pc, adding all cash will be deposited directly in CDA accounts and on a monthly basis CDA will return the share of the contractor.

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The official said there will be no fee for car parking for 15 minutes as many people park their cars for small work such as using ATM machines, purchasing some medicines and grocery items etc.

The Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA), which is part of MCI, is the main department to deal with parking issues. The CDA’s IT wing helped in digitising the parking lots.

The DMA has itself been collecting fees amid allegations of corrupt practices.

“For the last several years, fees at our main parking lots, including the one adjacent to Centaurus and G-9 terminal, are being collected by the directorate,” an official of the DMA said. Gradually, these sites will be brought under the digital parking system.

The official stressed the need for a proper inquiry into the collections and cash deposited with the DMA.

In 2022, during a special audit, massive irregularities were found in the self-collection system and an inquiry was recommended to fix responsibility. Subsequently, an inquiry committee was constituted, but it failed to fix responsibility.

The audit of several projects was conducted by a special CDA team headed by the then-audit officer, Rao Shahid Pervez, which unearthed massive irregularities and corruption.

The team had been tasked with carrying out a special audit into the collection of fees at Shakarparian and Daman-i-Koh car parking and parking lot adjacent to Centaurs in the last two years. The audit report had revealed that officials got parking ticket books for Shakarparian and Daman-i-Koh sites printed from a local market.

The auditors said due to the market-printed books, it was difficult for them to check the daily collection of parking fees and its remittance to the CDA and Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI). They said the books were printed without the approval of the competent authority.

The inquiry report had stated that a previous contractor of Centaurus car parking had to pay Rs30 million but not a single notice was issued to him by the DMA office for recovery of the amount.

“The DMA managed the sites of car parking without any standard operating procedure. There is no record maintained for the printing of ticket books, which basically caused less recovery,” it said.

The audit report observed that there was no transparency in the recovery of parking fee due to which the authority sustained a loss of Rs82.34 million,“ the audit report read.

The DMA took over possession of G-9 bus stand on Sept 8, 2021 and of the Centaurus parking space on June 24, 2021. The report said there were 19 kiosks in the G-9 bus stand and two in the parking at Centaurus which were given on rent to the general public without approval of the competent authority.

“The rent of these kiosks is received by the DMA staff but not deposited into the CDA accounts. This is a clear-cut loss to the authority which requires proper inquiry at an appropriate level,” the report added. It also pointed out that an amount of Rs170 million was recoverable from the contractor of the G-9 stand.

Following the audit report, the MCI and CDA had formed an inquiry committee, but its outcome has not come to the surface so far.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024