KOLKATA: Flooded with complaints from across the city, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Tuesday decided to scrap the contracts of certain cooperative agencies running some of the parking lots. While the civic body will allow those agencies to manage the spaces till the Pujas, after that, it will float fresh tenders, inviting bids from other agencies.
 After the mayor-in-council meeting, Chatterjee told reporters they had to take the step against unscrupulous agencies regularly fleecing commuters. “We have been receiving complaints about a section of cooperative agencies manning parking lots.We will float fresh tender to end this harassment for car owners. We want to overhaul the system after the Pujas,” said Chatterjee. “Motorists keep complaining against some cooperative agencies that charge extra from them, in complete violation of the civic car parking norms. We have identified some of the agencies and will take action against them.” A car parking department official said some commuters even complained that the attendants would refuse to allocate them slots if they did not agree to pay them extra, right at the beginning of the waiting time.
Some of the areas where rogue parking attendants operate are Burrabazar, Chittaranjan Avenue, Esplanade, Camac Street, Park Street, Rashbehari Avenue and Gariahat. “In many areas, the attendants charge as much as four-five times more than the usual rate, especially on busy days ahead of the festive season. To circumvent the unscrupulous act, we introduced hand-held devices that generated fee slips. We even made it compulsory for all the attendants to use the device.But some agencies refused to accept it,” said a KMC car parking department official. The KMC recently lodged two separate complaints at the New Market and Gariahat police stations against the fleecing.